


The Cyrano Factor

by Medievalchic



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-03
Updated: 2017-08-12
Packaged: 2018-09-28 03:01:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 81,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10067546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medievalchic/pseuds/Medievalchic
Summary: For Buffy's eighteenth birthday, Angel gives her a book of poetry.  This is the story of a book that meant something and a message written inside that meant less than it appeared.  Beta'd by Sunnydalesis and flootzavut.





	1. Birthday Present

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sunnydalesis](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Sunnydalesis), [flootzavut](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flootzavut/gifts).



> This is the first multi-chapter piece of fanfiction I ever wrote, so you may see that the writing evolves as I go along. I have had it posted on another site for some time, and have finally decided to transfer it to AO3 as well. I will try to post regularly, either on Fridays or whenever I update my WIP ("Knight Errant").
> 
> This is a Spuffy story. The Bangel and Sprusilla chapters are simply part of the set-up. Also, there is a lot of poetry, including both well-known works and original creations written specifically for the characters of BtVS.
> 
> Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

January 1999

 

The door of an upper bedroom in the old Crawford mansion gave a satisfying slam as Angel vented his frustration on the house that had become his tomb.  Five thousand square feet of living space had failed to turn up anything that might qualify as an adequate birthday present for the girl who was his salvation.  The vampire clutched at the banister, his fingers digging deep scratches in the wood railing as he brooded over the cold and empty great room.

He couldn’t go out and shop for an appropriate gift.  It would be several more hours before sundown, and Buffy would be here by then.  Not for the first time since his return from Hell, Angel questioned his decision to settle in this particular property.  Why had he chosen a place so far from the nearest sewer access?  He tried to think back to his reasoning last year.  He supposed that in his soulless state he had been less concerned about practicality than about the number of rooms in which he could have his way with Drusilla.

He sighed.  This really wouldn’t have been a problem if he had just remembered Buffy’s birthday a few days earlier.  He would have had plenty of time to find something.  But when you had been undead for two whole centuries, you tended to forget about little things like birthdays that seemed so important in a human’s frail, short life.

_Spike never forgot_ , a treacherous little voice in his head reminded him.  The younger vampire may not have celebrated birthdays, but he had always made a big event of his anniversary with Drusilla.  Every year on the date of his siring, he would pamper the madwoman with rose petal baths and sensual massages.  These gestures would be followed by a showering of expensive stolen dresses and fine jewelry, liberally supplemented with the choicest victims to sate her hunger.

However, romance had never been a big part of Angel’s life.  Of course, he understood the basics.  After all, the only human holiday he had ever bothered to celebrate was Valentine’s Day.  But his observance of it had always been about depraved displays meant to mock the romantic gestures of human couples.  And his relationship with Darla had never been more than mutual lust.  The two had always abandoned one another whenever danger had reared its ugly head.

No.  Human or vampire, soulless or soulful, Angel had never found a woman worth the effort of romancing until Buffy had come along.

Now his history of perverting romantic gestures had left him with few options for giving the love of his life a meaningful gift.  He couldn’t give her chocolates.  He didn’t keep any at the mansion.  Besides, he needed something that spoke to their relationship.  Roses were also out of the question.  Angel shuddered as he remembered the black-ribboned bouquet he had left on her doorstep last year.  Before his soulless stint, he might have considered drawing her a picture.  He had some skill with a pencil and he’d always been an artist at heart.  But now Buffy had seen the dark side of his artistry--how it influenced his kills.  And she had probably received enough of his sketches to last her a lifetime.

Frustrated, Angel pushed away from the banister and stomped resolutely down the hallway.  There had to be something romantic in this house that hadn’t been poisoned by the events of last spring.  He stopped hesitantly in front of a large set of double doors.  He hadn’t stepped foot inside the master bedroom since his return, ashamed of the memories of the time he had spent with Dru in its spacious interior.  But now Angel had no choice.  He had searched every other room in the house.

Slowly he pushed open the doors.  The room was even larger than he remembered.  The bulk of it was dominated by a huge wrought-iron bed, its sheets still rumpled from hours of lovemaking.  Opposite the bed was a heavy fireplace clad in Italian marble.  The back of the room curved into a massive bay window, a chaise positioned haphazardly beneath the heavy blackout curtains.  To his immediate left was an open door leading to the bathroom.  Peering into it, Angel could see that Drusilla’s dresses were still scattered on the floor where he’d torn them off her body several months earlier.

Shameful memories threatened to overwhelm him.  So much had happened since last May, but here in this room his betrayal of Buffy seemed like only yesterday.  Angel retreated back to the threshold, sickened by the reminders of what he had done.  But just as he was turning to flee, something caught his eye.

He shuffled reluctantly toward the fireplace and picked up the small familiar volume sitting on the mantle.

_Sonnets from the Portuguese_ by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

As he fingered the book’s yellowed pages, an idea began to take shape in Angel’s head.  Poetry was romantic, wasn’t it?  Most girls seemed to love it.  Or at least, they loved men who loved it.  Poetry made men seem mysterious and sensitive and deep.  When they had first met, Buffy had thought those things about him.  Maybe if he gave her something like this, Angel could recapture some of those feelings that had been lost on her last birthday.

He hesitated for a moment.  Technically, this little book had been tainted by his time as Angelus just as much as bouquets of roses.  But Buffy didn’t know that.  He flipped through the pages and frowned.  The original owner had written on several pages, underlining verses and writing comments in the margins.  He’d even written some short verses of his own.

Clearly, Angel was going to have to personalize the book in some way.  But how?  He wandered over to the bed and sat on it, reaching for the pen he knew he would find in the side table drawer.

He could write something of his own on the first page.  But would Buffy notice the difference in handwriting?  He didn’t think so.  To his eyes, his own eighteenth-century script differed significantly from the nineteenth century scrawl in the margins, but he doubted Buffy would see the difference.  It would probably all look equally sophisticated to a Valley Girl like her.

But what to write?

Angel’s hand remained poised over the book, his brain struggling to come up with something special.  “Happy Birthday” and “I Love You” seemed too generic.  He could write her a note, but words didn’t come easily to him.  He needed something short and pithy.  Something powerful.

Angel’s eyes wandered about the room as he considered his options.  Once again, something small caught his attention, sitting on the chaise across the room.  It was a box of sweethearts, probably one of Spike’s attempts to bribe Drusilla to come back to him.  Dru had shared the runt’s predilection for human food but tended to prefer sweet things to spicy ones.  He picked up the box and spilled the contents across the floor.

“Be Mine.”  No, too possessive. 

“Hug Me.”  Too needy.

“You’re Fine.”  Underwhelming.

“Moonbeam.”  Ridiculous. 

“Always.”

Angel paused.  That had a nice ring to it. 

He smiled and added the word to the title page with a flourish.  Now all he had to do was find something to wrap the book in before Buffy stopped by during nightly patrol.  He left the room in light spirits.  The poetry book was a good idea.  He just knew it.  After all, it had worked once before…

 

 

 

 


	2. Subway Treasure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the late post! I've been traveling today and I meant to post before I left, but I didn't have time. Hopefully late is better than not at all.

 

October 1977

 

The creaky, dilapidated car of the Number Six train came to a screeching halt in Grand Central Terminal.  Spike jumped off, glad to be freed from the enticing smell of so many human bodies in close quarters.  Ordinarily he would get a thrill risking exposure by quietly snacking on one of the commuters in plain sight, but now was not the time for such antics.  His current quarry was far too dangerous and considered it her sacred duty to protect the ungrateful masses who used the subway system from predators like himself.

Falling into a casual stroll, Spike maintained a careful distance from the bobbing Afro that was heading confidently towards the subway exit.  His target's Slayer senses were honed enough that she would be able to pick up his signature from yards away, but the crowds in the station would mask it as long as he kept far enough behind her.  She was dressed for the office, her long brown skirt paired with a bright orange blouse and stilettos.  Over her shoulder was slung a large canvas bag that he knew contained well-worn boots, sexy lace-up jeans, and one magnificent leather coat that must have cost her several month's salary. 

He'd been tracking Nikki Wood since she first boarded the Number Six at 125th Street.  He knew she lived in a rundown walk-up in East Harlem with her Watcher and her scrawny Slayer-spawn.  She made the long commute to 42nd Street every morning after dropping the latter off at daycare.  Daylight had made it harder to gather information on her work life, but through midnight break-ins and less sun-sensitive minions, he'd managed to gather that she worked as a secretary for some big accounting firm.  From all appearances, the broad spent her days making coffee and running reports for bull-necked tossers who made passes at her for eight hours straight.  She'd re-emerge every afternoon at five o'clock, already changed into slaying clothes, and vent her frustrations on the baddies who stalked the streets and subways of Manhattan every night.

It didn't surprise Spike that Nikki was forced to put up with such a job.  The Council of Wankers never bothered to pay their Slayers.  It didn't seem to occur to them that if the birds didn't have to work during the day, they might be more free to slay all night long instead of calling it quits after midnight, as Nikki usually did.  Then again, they were the sort of men who had the luxury of not working for profit themselves and probably assumed that Slayers survived on the sacredness of their duty.

Spike watched as Nikki pushed through the turnstiles and headed towards the stairs that would lead her to the world above.  A short man in a smart navy suit and shiny briefcase shoved past her in a hurry, adding insult to injury by flinging a slur her way.  Her eyes glinted with anger and Spike saw her jaw harden.  Good.  8:45 in the morning and someone had already brassed her off.  She'd be more than ready to let loose with him when he caught up with her later tonight.  He stared after her until she disappeared into the sunlight where he couldn't follow.

He'd been waiting for a challenge like this one for a long time.  After the Boxer Rebellion, Spike's path had crossed that of several other Slayers, but none had proven worth taking on.  He had learned pretty quickly that while each Chosen One was given the same basic set of strengths, not all Slayers were equal in a fight.  Any girl that the Watchers managed to keep under their thumbs would be adequately prepared to battle run-of-the-mill vamps, but were hampered by perfunctory moves and Council brainwashing.  They never lasted long.

Nikki was something entirely different.  The oldest Slayer on record, she had become a legend in the underworld, the terror of New York City demons.  Spike had been hearing rumors of her for years, but had only recently convinced Drusilla to travel Stateside and let him take on the challenge of facing her.  It wouldn't be easy, he knew.  He'd had his first taste of fighting the Slayer three nights ago in Central Park.  The pouring rain had made conditions slippery for both of them, but each had nearly had the other at one point in the evening.  She had been magnificent, throwing a stake he'd only caught a split second before it pierced his heart.  It had been the most exhilarating fight he'd had in decades.

Spike wandered aimlessly through the lower concourse of the terminal.  He had several hours to kill before Nikki got off work.  He should find a quiet spot to catch some kip before their big showdown, but he was too energized to sleep.  Besides, there was so much to see and do in a station like this one.  Grand Central was less a transport hub and more like an underground city in its own right.  As long as Spike stayed away from the upper concourse with its high windows, he could wander at will through shops and restaurants and underground bars and tunnels full of aspiring musicians.

He should pick up something for Drusilla while he was here.  His beloved princess was comfortably sequestered in an abandoned brownstone on the Lower East Side, sleeping off a small meal of one skinny night guard.  He was slightly worried that she wasn't eating properly again, but he'd chained two beefy construction workers to the bed in the adjacent room in case she woke up feeling peckish.  

Spike frowned.  Dru had grown increasingly agitated over the past few weeks.  She tended to get cross with him when he was gone for too long, and lately he had been spending quite a bit of his time in the underground, monitoring the Slayer's movements.  If he wasn't careful, the next time he returned to his dark goddess she would have _him_ chained up.    And while he didn't particularly mind enduring his sire's punishments, it would put a damper on his plans to kill the Slayer this evening.

 _Definitely shouldn't return empty-handed,_ he decided.  

A few hours' efforts landed Spike a strand of pearls and some earrings taken from an underground jewelry store, as well as a solid gold bracelet lifted directly from its former owner's arm.  He spotted a potential glassy-eyed companion for Miss Edith as well, but decided to come back for it later.  The punk rock look didn't work as well when you were carrying around a dolly in a lace dress .  He was about to return to his princess with the loot when he spotted a used bookshop on the far corner of the concourse.

 _Might be worth a look_ , he mused.  He'd left most of his library back in London.  Drusilla liked to move around so much that he couldn't carry that many books with him, but a handful didn't add much weight to their luggage.  He'd been on the lookout for something to read while he was in the States.

Spike strolled jauntily over to the shop and walked through the door.  A small bell announced his presence, and old man in a sweater and bow tie turned to greet him.  The man's eyes widened slightly as they traveled upward from Spike's ripped jeans to his leather-and-chains vest, black-lined eyes, and bleached hair.  The vampire smiled to himself, enjoying the man's nervousness.  He'd crafted his look so that even humans who didn't know what he was would automatically recognize him as dangerous.

"How can I help you?" The old man asked with shaky politeness.   _Too old too eat_ , Spike reflected.  Dru wouldn't find him appetizing either. 

"Got any poetry?" he asked instead.

The man pointed him to a small section on the back wall.  It wasn't much.  Some Milton and Donne, but Spike already had those memorized by heart.  Same with Blake and Keats.  Dru really liked Dickinson, but he already had several of her works.  He would have liked to pick up some Beatniks, but the store didn't seem to carry any.  A slim volume caught his eye.  He pulled it carefully from the shelf.

 _"_ Ah,  _Sonnets from the Portuguese,_ " the old man said as he came up behind him.  "My dear sweet Mabel loved that one."  He pointed to the opposite wall, which was graced by a small painting of an elderly woman in a floral dress.  A small vase of daisies stood on top of the bookshelf beneath the picture.

"Died in '62," he continued.  "We were together for sixty years before the cancer took her.  Mabel loved to go for picnics on Sunday afternoons and take some poetry with her.  Would read it out loud to the young'uns.  Really had the voice for it, too."

Spike raised an eyebrow, mildly impressed.  Six decades was a long time for a mere human couple.  Not nearly as long as he'd been with Dru, of course, but you had to make allowances for their different lifespans.

"Drusilla and I take our picnics in the middle of the night," he commented diffidently.  He didn't mention that their meals were usually gagged and bound to the nearest tree rather than packed neatly into a basket.

"She like to read poetry?"

Spike scratched the back of his head somewhat self-consciously.  

"Nah, Dru likes it better when I read to her."  The man looked at him curiously, as if re-evaluating his initial impression of the blond.  He nodded back to the book Spike was holding.

"You should try that one.  I bet she'd like it.  The sonnets might seem a little stiff at first, but the passion is all there."

Spike considered the book for a moment.  Elizabeth Barrett Browning was a little bread-and-butter for his current tastes, but Mum had liked her well enough.  He could remember reading the poems to his mother when her cough had made it too difficult to go out.  Gran had even met the lady once and walked away with a high opinion of her.  It had taken a lot to impress his grandmother.  

He flipped through the pages.  The volume was already two decades old and its pages had a slight yellow tint to them, but they were still crisp and clean.  No one had written on them.  Spike read a couple of stanzas.  He wasn't sure Dru would appreciate all the religious references, but those were to be expected in older poetry.

The old man was still looking at him.  

"You treat your Drusilla right?" he asked suddenly.

Spike glanced up.  He wasn't sure where this conversation was going.

"Yeah."

"That's good," the man said, nodding his head vigorously.  "Should try to keep your lady happy.  Keep the romance alive."  

He paused.  

"Tell you what.  You can have that one for free."

Spike stared at the old man in shock.

"You're just gonna _give_ it to me?" he asked incredulously.  In the century since he'd been turned, he couldn't remember anyone ever giving him a gift.  As a vampire, you only got whatever you could take for yourself.

The man shrugged.  

"Why not?  Not enough young men these days willing to read to their girls.  It'd make my Mabel happy to know there was someone out there who still appreciated Browning."  He gestured toward the book.  "Go on.  It's yours."

 _Nothing is yours_ , a voice in his head reminded Spike.  He hesitated.

"Besides," the shopkeeper continued with unexpectedly sly boldness, "it'll save you the trouble of stealing it."  

His eyes twinkled just a bit, and Spike suddenly found himself liking the strange old man.  He put his hand over his heart and made a show of mock offense.

"Don't know what you're getting at, mate."  He reached over to the counter with an exaggerated movement, picked up a packet of mints from a display next to the register, and slipped it inside his vest in front of the man's eyes.

The old man just laughed.

"Go on, ya punk!"  He shooed him toward the door.  "Go give your girl some sugar while you're both still young enough to enjoy it!"

Spike gave the man an appreciative grin, tucked the book beneath his arm, and ducked out of the shop.  He felt his stomach rumble as he looked out over the concourse.  

 _Comes from staying up too late_ , he thought wryly.  

He would have to find someone to snack on before returning to Drusilla.  In the meantime, he hopped aboard the Number Four train and settled into an empty row, stretching his legs across the seats to the annoyance of several other passengers.  He ignored them, opened his newfound treasure, and began to read.


	3. Prague

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is partly my lament for Drusilla. The poem Spike reads is Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnet 27. Going forward, we will see some of Spike's original poetry, but I wanted to give readers a taste of Browning's works, which will also play a role in the story.

February 1997

 

Spike shifted the slight weight of his slim, shuddering girlfriend in his arms as he made his laborious way through the streets of Prague.  He grimaced as Drusilla moaned piteously at the jostling.

"I'm so sorry, baby, but we're almost there, I promise."  She whimpered in response.

They were heading to the small pied-a-terre that had been their home for the past two months.  It was in the outskirts of the city in a private area where people tended to mind their own business.  That was an important quality for vampires who routinely brought home guests that never reappeared again. 

Of course, if they had been willing to live in a crypt like normal vampires, they would already have made it home. Spike had passed several cemeteries in the past few hours.  But the graveyards in this part of Europe were typically crowded by underworld standards, and good crypts had to be guarded against intruders at all times.  They just weren't worth it.  Besides, most of them were too small to spruce up proper, and Drusilla needed space for all her pretty things.  Nothing but the best for his princess.

_Better off away from the cemeteries anyway,_ he reflected as he made his slow way down the street toward the river.   _Bloody mob prob'ly hit those the moment we got away._   Not to mention any demon within a hundred mile radius would most likely turn them over to the humans given half a chance.  They had brought unwanted attention to everyone else in the underworld as well.

They never should have come to Prague.  True, since the lifting of the Iron Curtain it had developed the best nightlife of any city in the former Soviet bloc.  Dru loved it for that reason.  But after so many aggressively modernist regimes it was easy to forget that the Czechs had never quite lost their awareness of the supernatural world.  Not only were there still a lot people willing to acknowledge the existence of vampires here, but there was also a long cultural memory of what to do with monsters who forgot their place and started causing trouble for the locals.

The whole sorry affair had started when Drusilla had set her sights on the son of a high-ranking city official.  The handsome young man had been an inveterate womanizer, the darling of Prague.  Dru had seen his picture in a tabloid and immediately wanted to play with him.  She had even contemplated turning him.  Spike had begun seething with jealousy every time his name came up.  But still he helped her hunt the lout, unable to resist her pleading.

It had all been too public.  They'd cornered the man in an opera house and Dru had seduced him away from his box.  She'd had just finished draining him when they had been interrupted.  The security tape had caught her in full vamp-face, blood trickling from her mouth as they fled the scene.  City officials had tried to suppress the footage, as human governments always did, but they hadn't counted on the grieving father's connections.  Within hours, the videotape had passed through less-savory channels and reached the public eye.  By the time he and Drusilla had re-emerged to hunt again the following night, the citizens of Prague were up in arms, ready to deal with the undead menace the way their ancestors had always done.

They were spotted several blocks north of the Old Town Square and led the humans on an elaborate chase.  The mob caught up with them at Charles Bridge, where the vampires made their stand.  At first it had been fun, as having to fight for his existence always was.  Spike had gotten a kick out of taunting the mortals, mocking their attempts to kill him with bullets.  Even the more traditional weapons were rather funny.  Who knew so many of these city folk actually _owned_ pitchforks?  Since they'd all been metal, it hadn't really mattered.

But then they had brought out the torches.  Spike kept them at bay for as long as he could and Dru had held her own.  But she could only thrall so many at once, and a hysterical young woman had managed to light her dress on fire.  Spike had abandoned his fight immediately, but it had taken him several frightening minutes before he could reach his beloved.  Finally, he managed to grab the burning woman and jump into the Vltava, extinguishing the flames just before she reached the dusting point.  He'd kept them both submerged, and let the river carry them far downstream before making his way to the opposite bank.  Then he had wrapped his leather coat around his unconscious beloved and begun the arduous, secretive journey back to their hiding place.  

They reached their dwelling just as the sky was beginning to turn gray.  Spike could feel the prickle of approaching sunrise on the back of his neck as he kicked in the door.  He set Drusilla gently on a small red sofa before hurriedly shutting the heavy drapes.  Dru whimpered again, reaching for him.  He knelt at her side and clasped her burnt hand in his own, kissing it gently.

"I'll be right back, luv," he promised.  "Gonna get you cleaned right up."

"Daddy?" she whispered.  

A stab of pain shot through his unbeating heart.  It had been over nine decades since Angelus had left them, but Dru still cried for him from time to time.  No matter that her "daddy" would have abandoned her to the mob on a night like tonight.  Her sire had dug his fangs so deep into his beloved that she would never be entirely free from their residual poison.

"No, baby, it's Spike.  I'm just gonna to run some water for you.  It'll only take a minute."

She nodded.

There was a tiny bathroom in the back of the flat.  Spike ran the tap on an old claw-foot iron tub and put the stopper in place.  Then he crumpled onto the marble floor, buried his face in his hands, and sobbed hot tears as the tub began to fill with cold water.  

He had nearly lost her this evening.  His precious girl had nearly been reduced to dust.  Spike tried to imagine an endless future without Drusilla in it and his stomach clenched painfully.  He wasn't made to be alone.

_But you're not alone, you great ponce_ , he upbraided himself.   _Gotta keep it together.  Now get off your worthless arse._ This was not the time to fall to pieces.  Dru was in the other room and she needed him.  He wiped his eyes and forced himself to his feet, turned off the tap, and went to fetch her.

The next few hours were the worst of Spike's unlife.  He discovered that it was too difficult to separate Dru's dress from her burnt skin.  In the end, he had to bathe her fully clothed, letting the cold water loosen the fabric so he could finally remove it.  He scrubbed her skin as gently as he could with the softest sponge he could find.  It was a sign of how much pain Drusilla was in that she didn't resist his efforts with her usual fits but instead let him wash her with no more than a helpless whimper.  

After finally getting her clean, Spike wrapped his beloved in a soft blanket and carried her up the iron staircase that led to the sleeping loft.  He laid her on the low bed with its satin sheets and plush pillows.  She grasped his shirt, refusing to let go.

He leaned in close to her.  "Want me to read to you, pet?"

She gave a small nod and released him.  Spike pulled a leather bag from beneath the bed and began rummaging through his small collection of books, settling on the volume he had been given twenty years earlier.  He crawled into the bed and gently slid his right arm under her, holding her loosely enough not to aggravate her injuries.  With his left hand, he held the book above her shuddering form and began to whisper softly.

 

_My own Beloved, who has lifted me_

_From this drear flat of earth where I was thrown,_

_And, in betwixt the languid ringlets, blown_

_A life-breath, till the forehead hopefully_

_Shines out again, as all the angels see,_

_Before thy saving kiss!_

 

Drusilla had no life-breath, and he rather doubted any angels had smiled upon her deed that night in London.  His grand-sire probably didn't like it either, for different reasons.  But her kiss upon his throat had saved him from dreariness just as Robert's love had transformed Elizabeth.  He stared down at the fragile face of the woman who had rescued him from a mortal life of mediocrity and made him into a master of the night.  Her eyes had begun to droop, exhausted from pain and a night of being prey rather than predator.  He kissed her forehead softly and continued.

 

                                         _My own, my own,Who camest to me when the world was gone,_

_And I who looked for only God, found_ thee!

 

Spike wasn't sure who he had been searching for that night that his world had shattered.  He had just wanted to be something more than what he was, the laughing-stock of society.  Just once, he had wanted someone to _see_ him--see and find him worthy.  Drusilla had, and that had made all the difference that night so long ago.

He felt her nestle closer to him, already half sleep.  He frowned.  He had started reading the sonnets to Dru just a few months after he'd killed Nikki.  He had been trying to no avail to calm one of her fiercer fits.  She got like that occasionally, lost and fearful in her own mind, her pixies turning against her.  Sometimes it was mild enough that he could comfort her by hurting her, the way Angelus always had.  Other times, he let her pour out her pain upon him, accepting her torture as one of the few expressions of love she knew to how to give.  But very occasionally, neither her pain nor his would be enough to give Drusilla peace.  It was during one of those times that he'd tried reading her poetry.  And to his surprise, it had worked.

He really hadn't expected his dark princess to appreciate _Sonnets from the Portuguese_.  Browning was always going on about God and heaven and angels in her poems.  Spike liked poetry of all sorts, so he didn't mind those lines so much.  But he would never have anticipated that Dru, addicted as she was to ecstasies of torment, would like them as well.  

Come to think of it, perhaps that was the point.  His beloved hadn't always been in love with pain.  That was what her daddy had done to her.  Spike knew that there had been a time before Angelus, a time when she had once had real parents who cared for her.  What Drusilla had given _him_ was a gift, but _her_ good life had been torn away from her with brutality.  Maybe his princess liked pretending, if only for a little while, that she was still that pious little girl who knew her catechism by heart.

 

_I find thee; I am safe, and strong, and glad._

Drusilla's eyes fluttered to a close.  He set down the book for a moment and studied her, using his free hand to stroke her soft dark locks. It was up to him now to keep his beloved safe and strong.  Later tonight, he would have to hunt for the both of them.  She would need blood to heal.  It would be months before she was well enough to move about, let alone make her own kills.  He really needed to find a better place for her to recuperate.

Spike knew of several Hellmouths where she might be able to recover her former strength, but one in particular appealed to him.  He'd heard there was a Slayer guarding the Hellmouth in California, one who was supposedly as good as Wood.  Spike was skeptical.  He'd never found anyone who could dance as well as Nikki.  But it wouldn't hurt to see if the new chit was up to snuff.  And laying another Slayer at Dru's feet would surely lift her spirits, help her recover faster.

His course decided, Spike picked up the book again and read the last lines to himself.

 

_As one who stands in dewless asphodel,_

_Looks backward on the tedious time he had_

_In the upper life,--so I, with bosom-swell,_

_Make witness, here, between the good and bad,_

_That Love, as strong as Death, retrieves as well._

 

He closed the book and drew himself beneath the covers.

Love and Death.  It always came back to those two things, didn't it?  Dru's first act of love had been to kill him, retrieving him from the tedious upper life of the frilly cuffs and collars crowd.  She'd brought him to a world where they were one and the same.  Spike drew himself as close to her as he could, breathing in the intoxicating scent of his goddess.  

He closed his eyes and let the exhaustion overtake him.  Come nightfall, he would be back on the prowl, wrecking what vengeance he could on this sodding city for what it had done to his girl.  But for now, the two of them slept away the daylight hours, two monsters clinging to one another in meadows of asphodel.


	4. Theft

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some lines have been taken from "Innocence." The Browning poem Spike reads is Sonnet 30. We will see considerably more of his original poetry in the next chapter.

March 1998

Spike swore as the sound of furniture crashing upstairs reached his ears.  The din was followed by Drusilla's ecstatic shrieking mingled with Angelus' raucous laughter.  Evidently the great git was having himself a grand old time with his stolen lover. 

Spike kicked the stops on his wheelchair and rolled through the kitchen as quickly as he could.  There was a small utility room in the back with heavy doors.  It was the closest thing this sodding mansion had to a soundproof area.  He wheeled himself in and twisted the dials on the ancient washing machine despite the lack of clothes inside.  It wouldn't entirely drown out what was going on upstairs, but at least the loud cycle would muffle the sound of their lovemaking.

Lovemaking.  What an ironic term.  There was nothing loving about what was going on upstairs.  The poof was devouring his princess, same as he done to countless other victims.  Only now he was devouring Drusilla a second time.  

Spike hadn't realized that there was anything left for Angelus to steal from his girl.  But apparently Dru still had one last little bit of her heart that had remained untouched by his poison.  The bit that belonged to _him._   The small corner of her being that responded to gentleness and care.  The part of her that he had nurtured steadily ever since he'd been turned.  A few more weeks of this and that part of her would be gone forever, if it had not already been snuffed out.

For once, Spike found himself wishing the whore hadn't been dusted before he got to this sorry hellhole of a town.  He hated the haughty bitch with every fiber of his being, but maybe if Darla was still around his grandsire would leave Dru alone.

Then again, maybe not.  He had the Slayer to torment now and yet he still found time to fool around with Drusilla.  

A muscle in Spike's jaw tightened as his memory filled with images of golden hair and green eyes and a wicked right hook.  He shook his head, almost feeling sorry for the poor chit.  He should have killed her when he had the chance.  She deserved a better end than the one her ex had planned for her.

He could still hear Angelus' preening voice in his head.  

_"She's stronger than any Slayer you've ever faced.  Force won't get it done.  You've gotta work from the inside.  To kill this girl...you have to love her."_

Bollocks.  As if _he_ would know anything about either Slayers _or_ love.  

Not that he wasn't right about the Slayer's strength.  Spike had never seen anything like her.   Of course, until now the wanker had never exactly treated the girl like the powerhouse she was.  Wasn't it just brilliant that it had taken his grandsire losing his sniveling soul to suss out that his girl didn't really need him?  And Angelus had the balls to call _him_ a slow learner.  

At least Spike knew you didn't "work from the inside" with a bird like Buffy.  That was just the wanker going about things the cowardly way he always did.  Slayers were warriors of the highest order.  If you weren't good enough to take them in clean battle then you went out in a blaze of glory.  No shame in being dusted by a fighter of that caliber.

The sound of more furniture crashing brought Spike back into the harsh present.  He gritted his teeth and reached beneath his seat for the small book he had slipped under the cushion.  He cracked open the volume and tried to lose himself in Browning's world while his own came crashing down around him.

 

_I see thine image through my tears tonight,_

_And yet today I saw thee smiling.  How_

_Refer the cause?--Beloved, is it thou_

_Or I, who makes me sad?_

It galled him that Dru was so giddy about the recent turn of events.  Angelus hadn't been soul-free for five minutes before she'd gone running back to him.  She was reveling in all the attention he was lavishing on her.  But it wouldn't last.  Her sire would tire of her once he'd gotten over the initial pleasure of playing for the dark side again.  Then he'd be out looking for some new little lamb to torment.

She was shrieking again.  Spike returned hurriedly to his reading.

 

_Beloved, dost thou love?  Or did I see all_

_The glory as I dreamed, and fainted when_

_Too vehement light dilated my ideal,_

_For my soul's eyes?  Will that light come again,_

_As now these tears come--falling hot and real?_

A sick feeling twisted his stomach.  Did Dru love him at all anymore?  Had he already lost her completely?  It hadn't been that long ago that he'd got offended at her attempts to feed him, annoyed by his own helplessness.  Now he'd give anything for some small sign that she still gave a damn about him.

Hell, at this point, he'd even taken an attack.  If she was through with him, she should just dust him and be done with it.  Throw him outside and let the sunlight take him.  Anything was better than being ignored.  It'd be more merciful than leaving him here, chair-bound, while the family patriarch had his way with her in front of him.

The passion upstairs reached a crescendo.  Or wait, _was_ that still passion?  It sounded as if it had turned ugly.  He could hear Dru sobbing and Angelus was muttering something too low for even Spike's ears.  It sounded threatening.  Suddenly, Drusilla let out a different sort of shriek.

"No, no, no, _no, no, NO, NO, **NO**!!!!!!!!!"_   

Spike grimaced.  That sounded like one of her fits.  He could picture the scene as if it were right in front of him.  Her whole body would be flailing.  She'd be smacking her pillow or perhaps even Angelus himself.  Heaven knew Spike had been on the receiving end of those tantrums often enough.

There was the sound of fist striking flesh, a blow too hard to have come from Drusilla.

"STUPID BITCH!" Angelus shouted.  

A growl formed in the back of Spike's throat.  The wanker was hurting her, and not in the way she liked.  He felt his demon rise up inside him, clamoring to tear the older vampire to shreds.  He would kill him.  Rip his bloody throat out and drain him dry like he was a sodding human.

No.  He'd do it slowly.  Torturously.  Give the sadist a taste of his own medicine.  See how well all those lessons he'd given Spike so many years ago paid off.

But he couldn't do it right now.  Spike flexed his legs.  They were coming along as rapidly as could be expected given how little Angelus and his princess bothered to feed him.  But it would be several more weeks before he would be in fighting shape again.  Meanwhile, he would have to bide his time and keep himself from going crazy.

He redoubled his efforts to drown out the sounds coming from the master bedroom.  After a short, desperate search, Spike produced an elegant pen from the inside of his duster.  He pressed it to the page and forced himself to concentrate on forming his words.  After a few minutes, he leaned back and surveyed his efforts.

Bollocks.  Same worthless tripe he always produced.  Maybe a little worse.  He never wrote as well when his confidence was taking a hit, and Angelus was doing a right fine job of that.

"Taking care of dirty laundry, boyo?"a voice called from the doorway.  

Spike stiffened.  He'd been so absorbed in his thoughts that he hadn't noticed his grandsire sneaking up on him.  Must've left Dru upstairs.  Spike could still hear her wailing.

"Nah, just like it in here is all," he said sardonically.  "Warm.  Cozy.  Good place to relax.  Laundry rooms are underrated if you ask me."

"Is that so?  Maybe Drusilla and I should try the place out, then," Angelus smirked at him.  They had passed the point of double-speak several weeks ago and the older vampire had taken to more open taunts.  

"Sounds like Dru has other plans, mate _."_  Spike couldn't quite keep the bitterness out of his tone.

"Yes, well, you know women.  They never really know what they want."  He leaned in closer, putting his hands on the armrests of the wheelchair.  Spike forced himself not to look away, staring defiantly into his grandsire's eyes.  

"For instance," Angelus continued slyly, "right now Dru's saying she wants someone to _read_ to her."  

A stab of hope pierced through Spike.  Maybe he hadn't lost her completely yet.  The feeling was soon replaced with nausea, however, as he saw the look in Angelus' eyes.  

"So I'm thinking," the older vampire continued, "maybe _you'd_ know something she'd like."  He snatched the book from the younger vampire's hands.  "Something like this, maybe?"

Enraged, Spike rammed his wheelchair into Angelus' leg, reaching desperately for his book.  

"Oi!  Give it here!" he yelled.  

But Angelus just laughed and leapt out of the way.  He retreated into the kitchen.  Spike tried to give chase, but there were too many obstacles to maneuver around.  His grandsire perched himself on the back staircase, just out of Spike's reach.

"Just what has our boy been reading to little Miss Dru these past few years?" Angelus opened the book to the ribbon-marked page, his face lighting with cruel delight when he saw Spike's scribbles. "Oh, and _writing_ to her as well!  Let's give your words an airing, then."

Spike felt an all-too-familiar wave of shame sweep over him.  Angelus straightened up, striking a self-important pose.  He pretended to take a monocle from a make-believe pocket, screw primly it to his eye, and held the book with the air of one of William Pratt's social peers.

"Why, dear love, do you torment me so?" he read in a pompous voice.  "For what heinous crime do I now pay?  His eyes on you are like a blow, burning like the hottest beam of day."  Spike closed his eyes in humiliation.  He knew the poem had been terrible when he wrote it, but it sounded a thousand time's worse in his tormenter's mouth.

Angelus placed the ribbon back in the book with exaggerated care and closed it.  Spike opened his eyes and glared at his grandsire with all the ferocity he could muster.

"Willy, my boy, it's good to see you haven't lost your touch.  Still the same poet you've always been."

Spike's jaw hardened.  "Yeah?  Enjoy it while you can, mate.  All those flowers and pictures you keep sending your old squeeze?  If you don't start minding something beyond your own jewels, the Slayer's gonna kick them so hard you'll never shag another bird again, alive or dead!"

Something about the way Angelus' eyes slid away from his own piqued Spike's interest.  Hmmm.  That was interesting.  Maybe the Slayer already _had_ kicked him in the balls.  Good on her.  Would explain why despite all his bravado he seemed reluctant to meet her face to face.  Too bad she hadn't kicked him harder.

He wheeled as close to the stairs as he could and stared coldly up at Angelus.  "You've had your fun now, mate.  Now give it back."  He reached out for the book again.

Angelus seemed to recover his swagger.  He held the book just beyond Spike's grasp, taunting him.

"Now why would I do that?" he said innocently. "Drusilla wants her poetry.  And I _really_ shouldn't keep her waiting."

Spike slammed his wheels into the bottom step repeatedly as the older vampire retreated up the stairs with a triumphant jeer on his face.  He yelled every curse word in the English language--a few of which he made up on the spot--as Angelus disappeared from view. Then he let his entire body sag, his head resting against the wall.

The sound of Dru's giggle a few minutes later sealed his humiliation.  His poetry usually went through dozens of redactions before he dared read it aloud to his beloved.  The ditties he'd jotted down in the book were all raw, spur-of-the-moment ramblings.  Most of them were not as rotten as that one, but he doubted anything that he'd written would survive Angelus' recital.

Spike rolled into the great room and stared at the heavy drapes covering the windows.  It would be so easy to end it all.  All he had to do was pull back the curtain.  He fingered the fabric for a moment, tempted.  He wondered how long he would feel the fire before he was no more than dust on the floor.

 _Should prob'ly take off the coat_ , he thought dully.  No point in destroying Nikki's duster along with his sorry hide.  He shrugged it off his shoulders.  But as he looked at it for one last time, something inside him snapped.

He wasn't a Pratt anymore.  This coat proved as much.  He was a Slayer-killer.  Not even Angelus could make that claim.  And it'd be insulting to Nikki if the vamp who vanquished her just kicked it without a proper fight.  He'd go out by one of her sister-Slayers or not at all.

He put the coat back on and considered his options carefully.  He needed a plan.  Normally he didn't have the patience to go through with them, but it's not like he was going anywhere in this bloody chair.

_Think, dammit!_

He remembered the look on Angelus' face when he brought up the Slayer.  The wanker was afraid of her.  As well he should be, arrogant twat. Facing off with the little blonde chit had been Spike's greatest challenge to date.  And while the chair was frustrating as hell, putting him in it had been a right fine piece of work on her part.

An idea began to take shape in Spike's mind.  The Slayer had as much reason to want her ex dead as he did.  And she could do it, provided he didn't throw her off her game by killing more of her little Scooby-gang.  Spike could help with that.  For the first time in several weeks, a smile that wasn't entirely bitter tugged at the corners of his mouth.  

Maybe he could get his own back after all...


	5. Little Things

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some dialogue taken from "Helpless" and "Enemies."

Buffy curled herself underneath the covers of her bed and tried not to think about what might be going on across town.  The trap was being set in motion.  By the end of the night, they should be able to catch Faith in her lies and figure out what she knew about the Mayor and his ascension.  She wished that knowledge could make her feel better. 

It helped a little that she had followed Willow's advice and confronted Angel directly about the kiss she had seen Faith plant on his cheek.  He had told her about their conversation, and the two of them had begun to piece together the evidence that Faith was no longer working for the White Hats.  Then when she had gone to Giles to give him the information, Buffy had found him deep in conversation with his demon friend.  Apparently the friend had been hired by the Mayor to remove Angel's soul.

The plan to use the situation to entrap Faith had been Buffy's idea.  It made sense, really.  They needed to figure out what was going on and Faith's interest in Angel was the perfect set-up.  She had never met him as Angelus, so she wouldn't be able to tell when he was faking.  And when it was over, Faith would be exposed and the Mayor's plan revealed. 

So why couldn't Buffy shake her doubts?

She supposed part of it was that what she had told Willow was still true.  Angel _did_ have more in common with Faith than with her.  She remembered briefly the sick feeling that had gnawed at her last year when she thought she had killed a man.  She had felt it again when Faith had stabbed the Mayor's lackey.  But that had to be nothing compared to what Faith felt, however much she tried to deny it.  Angel understood that.  He had a lot more deaths on his conscience than Faith.

Buffy tried to suppress the image of Jenny Calendar's face.  That was the other reason this trap wasn't sitting well with her.  Faith might have no memories of Angelus, but Buffy had plenty.  And this this plan...well...  

It waskind of a mind game, wasn't it?  Sure, Faith deserved it.  Buffy would love nothing more than to kick her skanky ass all the way back to the East Coast after everything she had done. And yet...she could remember the mind games Angelus had played with her all last spring.  The roses.  The drawings.  Willow's dead fish.  Ms. Calendar. 

The fact that Angel had agreed so readily to pretend to be evil again made Buffy nervous.  At Christmas, he had admitted to her that part of him wouldn't care about losing himself in her again.  She had been too busy trying to save him from suicide that night to give his words any credence.  But this thing with Faith made her wonder.  Did he miss it?  The freedom from guilt?  The art of the kill?  The careful creation of a web that would lure his prey to their doom?  Was this just another kind of hunt?

Buffy threw off the covers and got up.  She needed something to distract herself from her thoughts.  Ordinarily she would just grab some weapons and head for patrol a little early.  But the sun was nowhere near setting.  Besides, she was supposed to be hiding out so that she wouldn't complicate Angel's plan or put him in a compromising position too soon.  For now, she would have to settle for less Slayer-y distractions.

Her eyes fell on the small book sitting on her vanity. She picked it up and returned to her bed, curling her feet beneath her as she opened it to the title page.

_Always_ , he'd written.  

Mouthing the word to herself helped calm her jitters a bit.  Angel would always love her, Buffy told herself firmly.  She forced herself to recall their conversation the night he had given her the book.  It had been an awful night.  Love poetry had been the last thing on her mind.  When he had questioned her, all the worries had come pouring out.  But he had been so sweet in the face of her fears.  Buffy closed her eyes, remembering his words.

 

_"I saw you before you became the Slayer."_

_"What?"_

_"I watched you.  I saw you called.  It was a bright afternoon out in front of your school.  You walked down the steps and...and I loved you."_

_"Why?"_

" _Because I could see your heart."_

_He stood up and walked slowly toward her._

_"You held it before you for everyone to see.  And I worried that it would be bruised or torn.  More than anything in my life I wanted to keep it safe."_

_He was standing over her now, his eyes intense and melancholy._

_"To warm it with my own."_

_She leaned in to snuggle against him._  

_"That's beautiful."_

 

Of course, she'd ruined the moment by pointing out that if taken literally, it was also incredibly gross.  But luckily he hadn't been offended.  Buffy smiled to herself, tracing the word on the title page tenderly.  No matter how doomed their relationship might appear to others, they would be alright.  She just knew it.  Because Angel had loved her at first sight.  That was a sign of true love, right?  They were destined to be together.

Buffy flipped through the pages, pouring over the nineteenth-century language.  When Angel had first given her the book, she had commented that it was full of stuffy words for her to learn.  But her snippiness hadn't really been directed at the book.  It had been about her.  Before becoming the Slayer, Buffy had been even more shallow than Cordelia.  That night as her identity was called into question, she had been afraid of becoming that ditzy cheerleader again.  The kind of girl who wasn't deep enough for poetry.

But defeating Kralik while powerless had given her back her nerve.  In the weeks that followed, Buffy decided to take the book as Angel's vote of confidence in her maturity.  She wouldn't let him down.  She would prove that she was more than just Cordelia with some sweet kickboxing skills thrown in the mix.  

So reading the _Sonnets from the Portuguese_  had become a nightly ritual for her.  She would crawl into bed after patrol, snuggle with Mr. Gordo, and try to make sense of the old-fashioned words.  They sounded so different from her own California lingo, but gradually their elegance began to win her over.  She still didn't get every line, but once she got the cadence down the poems became a little bit easier to understand.  Whoever this Browning woman had been, she had obviously been deeply in love.  Buffy wished she could express herself half as well.  But what she really loved was that Angel _had_ expressed his own feelings in the book.  Practically every page had some sort of commentary.  

Buffy frowned as she flipped through the book.  The thing was, some of the comments really didn't _sound_ like Angel.  Her eyes paused on Sonnet 25, in which the poet described how the years before she met her beloved were filled with despair.  Angel had written in the margins, " _Too bloody right_."

Okay, she got that he had spent a century dealing with depression before he met her, but the comment sounded really weird coming from Angel.  The only people she knew who used the word "bloody" were Spike and occasionally Giles.  Wesley probably also used it privately, but he wouldn't be caught dead dropping slang in front of Americans.  

But Buffy had never heard _Angel_ use a word like that.  She knew he was Irish and wasn't exactly sure when he had lost his accent.  Maybe it was later than she had thought.  Maybe he still had it when he had first seen her in LA.  But if that were the case, wouldn't there still be traces coming through in his speech?  Wouldn't she have heard something like that drop out of his mouth before now?  

And anyway, did Irish people even _use_ that word?  Buffy wasn't exactly an expert on accents.  Ireland was close to England, right?  It made sense that they would share some of the same slang.  She had thought about asking Angel at one point, but she couldn't seem to find the courage for it.  Besides, she suspected that if she asked something like that she might be subjected to a whole lecture on history and politics that she just didn't want to deal with right now.  

She supposed Giles would be able to tell her, but Buffy didn't care to have her Watcher know about the poetry book.  It might raise awkward questions about when Angel had first seen her.  She could almost hear him cluck his tongue in disapproval at Angel's tale of seeing her on the steps of Hemery High.  He would probably dislike that a vampire had been watching her from the shadows.  He wouldn't get the romance of it all.

Anyway, she was probably overthinking it.

Buffy flipped through the pages some more, enjoying the little poems that Angel had jotted down in the margins.  Some of them were written in Latin and French. One day when she was feeling less shy about the whole thing she would get Willow to help her translate those.  But there were enough written in English for her to enjoy even now.  They were mostly short and sweet, and they usually had something to do with whatever Browning was saying.  

For instance, Browning's first sonnet was about how a mysterious superpower had grabbed hold of her.  The end of it read,

 

_And a voice said in mastery, while I strove,--_

_"Guess now who holds thee!"--"Death" I said._

        _But there_

_The silver answer rang,--"Not Death, but Love."_

 

In response to this image, Angel had written,

 

_So suddenly did my goddess seize_

_My shadow-life in deathless grip_

_Reborn, remodeled, remade to please_

_And dance forever at her hip._

 

Buffy smiled as she read the words.  He was so sweet, calling her a goddess.  And the image fit them so perfectly!  As Slayer, she represented death to him.  She remembered the night she had discovered what he was.  He had wanted her to kill him.  But instead she had fallen in love.  And okay, she hadn't deliberately set out to "remake" him, but his story of seeing her at Hemery had basically been about him leaving behind his "shadow-life."

She turned a few more pages, stopping when she came to Sonnet 8.  This one made her grin because Angel had apparently disagreed strongly with Browning's sentiment.  The sonnet was all about how she didn't have anything to give to her beloved that was worthy of the gifts he had given her.  In response to it, Angel had written that he was " _NOT a pauper!"_   Below the sonnet was one of his longer poems:

 

_What desirest thou, my moonlit queen_

_To crown thy raven hair?_

_A comb I'll bring, all silver-sheen_

_For my lady-love to wear._

 

_And what for your robe, my dearest sweet?_

_Satin or lace or silk?_

_Ribbons and pleats I'll lay at your feet_

_And linens white as milk._

 

_By what fair tribute or jewels of note_

_Shall I my lady woo?_

_Pendants and pearls for her pretty throat_

_And rubies and sapphires too!_

 

It was so cute!  And Angel totally did love giving her gifts.  He'd given her the cross and the Claddagh ring.  The ring had been especially meaningful because it was part of his heritage and represented their love.  She frowned, suddenly remembering that Scott Hope had given her the same thing.   _Meaningful, but not rare,_ she amended.  Oh well.  It wasn't like she needed actual rubies and sapphires.  

Buffy read through the poem again, for sheer pleasure.  The phrase "raven hair" stuck out sort of strangely.  She twirled a strand of her own blonde locks around her finger.  You didn't have to be a bird watcher to know that ravens were black.  The image of Faith's long dark hair flitted through Buffy's mind.  She shook her head, not wanting to think about the fact that her sultry sister-Slayer was currently trying to seduce her boyfriend.  She shouldn't read too much into the wording.  Angel probably wasn't trying to be literal.  Maybe that was just the sort of imagery that came naturally to a vampire.  It probably explained the throat comment as well.

Slowly Buffy read through the rest of the poems.  There was one toward the end that still boggled her mind.  It was connected to Browning's last poem, Sonnet 44.  The original poem was all about exchanging flowers and keeping them safe as symbols of shared love.  But beneath it Angel had written something more obscure:

 

_Once I danced in fields of daisies_

_Bedazzled by sweet baby's breath_

_Purple heather was my pillow_

_My comrades striped carnations_

_And sunny chrysanthemum._

 

_But nestled in softest shade_

_I found the calla and the crocus_

_Framed by ferns and forget-me-nots_

_'Twixt plum tulips and tuberose_

_And night-blooming jasmine._

 

_Now I dwell in balsam bowers_

_Of gold daffodil and delphinium_

_Guarded by great gladiolus;_

_Secreted in this sanctuary springs_

_The red rose and snapdragon._

 

Buffy hadn't realized that Angel knew so much about flowers.  Half of them she had only ever heard of in passing.  What exactly was gladiolus?  Was she supposed to know them all?  Was this some sort of elaborate metaphor?  Maybe she should take some poetry classes when she started college in the fall.

She turned the page and savored the last poem.  It was written on the extra leaves that sometimes come at the end of books.  It was so long that he had been forced to finish it on the inside of the back cover.  But it was so sweet and sensual.  It turned something simple and ordinary into pure magic.  One day she would work up the courage to talk to him about it.  But for now she just read and dreamed.

As she finished, Buffy noticed that one small corner of the paper had come unglued from the back cover.  There was something stuck between the sheet and the cardboard.  She pulled it out.  It was a slip of paper folded up so tiny that she probably could have read the book a dozen more times without noticing it.  She unfolded it carefully.  It was another poem, one that didn't fit with the style of the book at all.

 

_Bad Dog growls_

_Cruel Kitty meows_

 

_Hiss and bark_

_Caper and carp_

 

_Till Sweet Kitty purrs_

_And they rub furs_

 

_Nose nuzzling nose_

_In comfortable pose_

 

_Then Dear Kitty prances_

_While Bad Dog prowls;_

 

_At Moon-Kitty's glances_

_Her happy hound howls!_

 

Buffy stared at the poem for a moment, then broke out into hysterical laughter.   _What the hell, Angel?_ She scolded him mentally.   _Where did THAT come from?_   

She was used to a broody, melancholy boyfriend.  She didn't imagine Angel had ever intended for her to find _this_ poem.  He had probably stuck it there sometime in the past and had completely forgotten about it when he gave her the book.  It was fun and flirty and kind of naughty.  Nothing like the vampire she knew.  At least not the souled version.  Did Angel have a lighthearted side that wasn't evil?  A nervous hum trilled through her stomach.  It would be so nice to share something like this with him.  But the only time she could remember him being this cheerful had been when he had been trying to kill her.  And that wasn't him.

Buffy closed the book.  Even aside from the flirty poem, it seemed strange that someone as close-mouthed as Angel could be so wordy in writing.  Willow had called him taciturn.  To be honest, the only part of the book that sounded like her boyfriend was the message on the title page.  She opened the book again and traced the word one more time, drawing strength from the reassurance it gave her.   _Always._

 

*******

 

Buffy entered the mansion slowly, her eyes on the shadowy form sitting on the floor.  His cruel and arrogant demeanor was gone, melted away into the brooding soul she knew so well.  Angel looked up at her approach.

"How you are doing?" he asked.

"Been better."  

That was the understatement of the year.  The past few days felt like someone had turned her world upside down, given it a shake, and then set it back as if nothing had changed.

"Not hard to believe.  You were a real soldier last night, Buffy."  He stood up.

"That's me," she said ruefully.  "One of the troops."

"I know how hard it was for you."

"I really doubt that," she replied, unable to meet his eyes.  It wasn't fair to let him see how upsetting last night's events had been.  She couldn't blame him for everything going according to plan.

"If there's anything I can do to make it better..."

Buffy dug her nails into her palms, trying to steady herself.  She wished she could forget the look in his eyes as he had pretended to cuff her.

_"Morning, sleepyhead.  You know what I just can't believe?  All our time together and we never tried chains."_

She forced the image away.   _He was acting,_ she reminded herself.   _It was all just an act._   That was what she had told Xander.  Because it was the truth.  Even if at the time, she had known that her body was giving away all her fear.  She hadn't quite resisted the urge to double-check the cuffs and make sure he hadn't really locked them. It was a little bit ironic.  Their plan had been based on Faith not being able to know when Angel was faking evil, but by the end of it Buffy wasn't sure _she_ could tell the difference.  She took a deep breath before continuing.

"Look, I know you only did what I asked.  And we--we got what we wanted..."

Angel shook his head, his eyes downcast.  "I never wanted it to go that far."

"I know that," she reassured him quickly.  "It's not even a question of that."

And it wasn't.  Not really.  She knew Angel would never intentionally betray her to Faith.  Angelus would, but he wasn't Angel.  If he had proven to be completely convincing during their little drama, it was just because he was such a good actor.  There was no other possibility.

"It's just---after the--"  The words didn't want to come.   _Breathe,_ she told herself.  She looked up into Angel's pensive face.  "I need a little bit of a break."

A wounded look came into his eyes.  He swallowed and looked away.  Buffy forced herself to stand firm.  But she couldn't help softening the blow a bit.  Her own heart was hurting too much.

"Please?" she asked softly.

He gave an almost imperceptible nod.  She turned and began walking away.  His voice called out after her.

"Are you still my girl?"

She knew he could hear her heart pounding.  She looked back and gave him the bravest smile she could muster.

"Always."

Then she walked out of the mansion, desperately hoping she had told the truth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The flower poem is utilizing Victorian flower symbolism. I had to consult several sources because it could become very convoluted. Here is the general break-down:
> 
> stanza one
> 
> daisy--innocence, purity, loyalty
> 
> baby's breath--innocence, purity of heart
> 
> lavender heather--solitude
> 
> striped carnation--rejection
> 
> yellow chrysanthemum--either friendship or slighted love; I choose to believe this is the Victorian equivalent of friend-zoning
> 
>  
> 
> stanza two
> 
> calla lily--majestic or regal beauty
> 
> crocus--usually means good cheer, but can also sometimes mean foresight, which is how Spike uses it here, referring to Dru being a seer
> 
> ferns--magic, fascination
> 
> forget-me-not--pretty much self-explanatory
> 
> purple tulip--royalty
> 
> tuberose--pleasure
> 
> jasmine--depends on type, but this is Spanish jasmine, which in addition to being night-blooming also conveys sensuality
> 
>  
> 
> stanza three
> 
> balsam--ardent love
> 
> yellow daffodil--chivalry
> 
> delphinium--boldness
> 
> gladiolus--sword-like flower named for gladiators, signifies strength of character
> 
> red rose--passionate love
> 
> snapdragon--gracious lady, strength


	6. Made Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first crossover chapter with AtS. There will be a few more going forward.

November 1999

Buffy couldn't believe her luck.  When her friends had let slip Angel's covert presence in Sunnydale last Thursday, she had barely managed to keep up Thanksgiving cheer for them throughout the weekend.  But as she boarded the train to LA earlier this morning, it was with a stomach full of knots.  She had just known that she was in for a world of heartache as she faced her ex-lover again.  That was the way it had always been with the two of them.  Desire and drama and what-if's and it-can-never-be's. 

But not today.  Today, Tuesday was finally working in her favor.  After a century of guilt-ridden struggles with his own bloodthirst, Angel was finally human again.  The sight of her brooding beloved walking toward her in the glorious sunlight, a rare smile on his face, left a warm glow deep inside her.  Buffy knew she would treasure the memory of this day forever.

She rolled over and snuggled against his newly-warm chest, listening for the sound of his heartbeat.  There it was.  Du-dum.  Du-dum.  Every single beat was like a soft whisper, reassuring her that this wasn't just a dream.  Her lover--there was no reason to call him an ex anymore--was really, truly _alive._   

For so long, the knowledge that true happiness was not in the cards had kept them apart.  Angel had left her behind in Sunnydale with the conviction that Buffy deserved better than the love they had.  She knew he had wanted a more normal life for her, a relationship that could actually go somewhere.  It had upset Buffy at the time, but she understood.  If only Angel hadn't kept trying to hold on, showing up and skulking around without her knowledge.

But now she was glad he had.  Because now they had a chance.  They no longer had to fear lost souls and dead teachers.  They could be together.  Have picnics in the daytime.  Do couple-y things for fun.  Maybe even get married.  Mom would like that.  Granted, Joyce didn't care for Angel, but she would come around once she realized that he could give Buffy the life she'd always wanted for her little girl.  They probably wouldn't grow old together, since Slayers still had a short expiration date. But Slayerness aside, this accident with the Mohra demon had just given her the closest thing to a normal life she would ever have.  

Why hadn't they thought of seeking out Mohra earlier?  Surely Giles had heard of the regeneration thing.  She really should have gotten the Scoobies to research the magical world for answers to Angel's little happiness clause a long time ago.

Oh well.  It didn't matter anymore.

Angel opened his eyes and smiled down at her.  She snuggled closer.

"Hey there," she whispered.

"Hey."  

He kissed the top of her head. Her hair stuck to the bottom of his chin.  She giggled.

"What?" he asked.  She freed the lock of hair.

"Nothing," she said.  "You just got a little crazy with the ice cream.  You're still all sticky."  She smiled at the pleasantness of the thought.

Angel patted his face and chest in confirmation.  He groaned.  "I should shower."

Buffy pouted a bit, but let him go.  It was alright.  They had plenty more ice-cream-and-each-other binges in their future.  A few minutes later, she heard the water start to run.  Buffy wondered what time it was.  Angel's bedroom was so dark that it felt like the middle of the night.  She rolled over and checked the clock.  It was still only 5:00.  They had time to go out to an early dinner like a normal couple and come back for more happy times later in the evening.  She pulled herself up, intent on making herself presentable as well.

Hmmm...Angel had no mirrors.  That was something she was going to have to fix sooner rather than later.  Maybe they could buy a house together and Buffy could fill it with mirrors so she could see his reflection all the time.  It didn't solve her immediate problem, though.  She wondered idly how female vampires managed to primp without seeing themselves.

The thought had no sooner flitted through Buffy's head than it was followed by an exhilarating idea.  She had never had the courage last year to ask Angel about the final poem in her book.  This was the perfect opportunity.

Of course, she didn't have the book with her.  She had been too full of emotional turmoil to bring it on the train.  But that was okay.  She had read it so many times that despite its length it was the first poem she had actually managed to commit to memory.  Buffy closed her eyes a moment, picturing the words on the book's last few empty leaves.   _Playing Mirror_ , it was called.  It was the only poem Angel had bothered to name, so she knew it must be as special to him as it was to her.

A tremor ran through her as she heard the water in the bathroom shut off.  Angel would reemerge any minute now.  Quickly, Buffy tiptoed across the room and grabbed her makeup bag out of her luggage.  Luckily, she actually _had_ intended on visiting her dad and spending some time in LA with him, so she happened to have packed a fair amount of toiletries.  

She poured the contents of the makeup bag out on the bed.  It should be enough.  The door opened and Angel walked out of the bathroom, buttoning up his shirt.  Buffy saw him pause as he took in the mess on the bed.

"What's all this?"

Her heart was pounding heavily, and she was suddenly glad that he could no longer hear it beating from a distance.   _Stop acting like a little girl!_ she told herself sternly.   _You're a grown woman._   This wasn't the time to get scared.  She wanted this moment to be as beautiful as she had imagined.  She took a deep breath to steady herself, then asked the question that had been on her mind since her birthday.

"Will you do my makeup?"

 

**************

 

"What?"

"Will you...do my makeup?"  Buffy repeated her question, feeling even more self-conscious than before.  She held out a bottle of concealer for emphasis, trying to ignore the rising air of awkwardness.

Angel continued to look at her blankly.  "Wh-why?" he asked.  "Don't you usually do that yourself?"

Buffy felt herself flush.  What did he mean?  He was the one who had written the poem!  How could he not understand what she was asking?  She thought quickly.  Maybe he was looking for her to give him some sort of practical excuse?

"Well...ummm..." she tried again, struggling not to fidget or look away.  "You don't have any mirrors...and...I thought...well, I _hoped_...we might go out to dinner...and that you might...you know...help me put my makeup on?"  

She hadn't intended it to come out as a squeak, but Angel was starting to look like a deer caught in someone's headlights.  Buffy felt her confidence evaporating.

"It could be kind of sexy," she offered timidly, "you know, like the poem in the book you gave me?"

"Oh," Angel said, his eyes getting a sort of distant look.  "Right...".

"I mean, if you don't want to, I understand completely," Buffy said quickly, trying to squelch the disappointment in her voice.

"No, no!  Of course I will," Angel said hesitantly.  He smiled nervously at her.  "You just took me by surprise."

Relief flooded her.  She gave a small laugh.

"Oh good!"  

She perched herself on the edge of the bed, feeling bashful and giddy at the same time.  She closed her eyes in anticipation, remembering the opening lines of his poem.

 

_Pour into a fat tureen_

_Or basin brimming deep_

_Water fresh and warm_

_And fragrant oils let steep:_

_Tart lemon to clean,_

_Lush lavender to keep_

_Moods soft and serene_

_Healing myrrh maintains_

_On pale and pretty skin_

_A softly-glowing sheen._

_Wash gently,_

_And let her preen._

 

Not that she intended to preen, of course.  Well, maybe just a little.  It was sort of impossible not to feel special when Angel had imagined--had even written--doing something this tender for her.

She heard him pull up a chair next to the bed and sit down.  She opened her eyes again.  He was going through the makeup, reading the labels carefully.  Clearly, he had forgotten how the poem started.

"Umm...you might need to wash my face first," she reminded him teasingly.  "I'm not as sticky as you, but I can still feel the ice cream."

"Oh.  Right."  That was the second time he had used those words.  It was cute, really, that he was as jittery as she was.

He stood up quickly.  "I'll be right back."  

She nodded, and he darted back into the bathroom.  She heard the faucet running again.  A few minutes later he was back, holding a washcloth that smelled like hand soap.  He started scrubbing her face.

Well, she _had_ taken him by surprise.  Buffy supposed she couldn't really expect him to have lemons and lavender and myrrh on hand.  Though she had sort of thought he could at least fill a bowl with soap and water or find something to improvise.  But at least he was being gentle, which was nice.  She shouldn't be too demanding.

Angel finished washing her face and tossed the cloth aside.  He began picking up items and reading labels again.  He picked up the concealer she had held out earlier, then set it down and picked up the powder foundation, then set _it_ down and looked at the concealer again.  Then held them both up and looked at them side-by-side.  

Finally, he glanced up at Buffy, a desperate plea for help in his eye.  She suppressed a giggle.  Well, the poem hadn't mentioned anything about concealer.  It was probably one of those things that hadn't featured into Angel's imagination.  It wasn't something other people were supposed to notice, after all.

She pointed helpfully to the concealer.  "That one first.  Just put a dab under my eyes and on any reddish areas.  Then you can do the powder."

"Right.  Got it."  She smiled and let him work.

 

_With soft supple brush_

_Powder nose and eyes_

_Caressing with care_

_The fair and fetching face_

_With its beauty bare--_

_Dappled skin to disguise._

_That checkered grace_

_Secret and hidden lies_

_For me alone to dote_

_Upon the flesh I idolize._

_Kiss now_

_Her perfect throat._

 

Angel dabbed a bit of concealer under her eyes and on her chin and rubbed it in briskly.  He opened her compact and stared at it blankly.  "How do I..."

"Oh!"  Buffy had lost the application pad that came with the powder a long time ago.  "There are brushes in that little bag," she said, pointing to a small blue cloth on the bed.

Angel unfolded it and continued to stare at the assortment of makeup utensils.  

"It's the big brush."  Buffy felt a twinge of impatience as she spoke.  It wasn't that she minded directing him.  It was just that she thought he already knewsome of these things.   After all, he had _written_ about them.  Didn't he remember?  As soon as the thought crossed her mind, however, she felt guilty.  It had been a long day for both of them.  Angel was probably just feeling a bit overwhelmed.

She sat patiently while he powdered her face.  He was using too much but she didn't say anything, not wanting to ruin the moment by being too critical.  He finished applying the foundation and returned the compact to the makeup bag.  Buffy used his distraction to rub in the line he had created at her chin.

There were butterflies in her stomach again.  It was time for the kiss.  She bit her lower lip, remembering the last time Angel's lips had been at her throat.  She had barely survived the experience.  This time it would go better.  He wasn't a vampire anymore.

Angel turned back to examine the other items on the bed.  Buffy's stomach sank a little in disappointment.  He had forgotten about the kiss.  How could he have forgotten the _kiss?_   She could understand forgetting some of the technical details of putting on makeup, but that was one of the sexy bits!  

Buffy considered for a moment outright asking him to kiss her, but she didn't really want to come off as desperate or brazen.  She decided to focus on enjoying the rest of the experience instead, and forced her attention back to the new human who was currently rifling through her eye shadow options.  She smiled once more, remembering what came next.

 

_Her eye beguiles my own_

_Stealthy as the Sphinx_

_Trapping in tender trance_

_Both prey and lover prone._

_Magic lies in mystic gaze_

_(Alluring in itself alone)_

_But my lady may enhance_

_The witchcraft in her winks_

_Seducing sods who stray_

_Into eye of painted lynx._

_Rest briefly_

_And enjoy her charm._

Buffy had never been sure what to make of that part of the poem.  She remembered reading about the Sphinx in high school.  It was some sort of Greek mythological figure that trapped men and forced them to answer riddles or be eaten.  It was sort of a violent image, though she supposed that wasn't unheard of in love poetry.  She wasn't sure why Angel had decided to pair prey with lovers, though.  Was that how vampires saw her?  As a predator?  She had never thought about it before.

And what was with the bit about a mystic gaze?  Sure, she could do sexy easily enough, but the Mata Hari thing didn't really work for her.  And the only witchcraft in her life came from Willow's experiments.  Maybe she was overthinking it again.  It was probably just romantic-speak for "your eyes are really pretty."

 

_Spread across enchanting eye_

_A shimmering shade that pales_

_And catches in the candlelight_

_Of a dark and dreamy place._

_Now some bright beauteous dye_

_Or peacock paint do trace_

_Winsomely across the white;_

_Hot hue 'neath lashes hid_

_Peeping like petticoat lace_

_Which wicked wind unveils._

_Sing sweetly_

_For her pleasure._

"Buffy!"

"Huh?" Damn.  She'd drifted off into Imagination Land again.

"I said, what colors do you want?"  Angel repeated.

"Oh."  Buffy shrugged.  "Just something to go with that."  She gestured to the glittery white halter top sitting on her suitcase.  "You choose."

Angel eyed the sparkly fabric and selected a translucent shade of white.   _Well, that's a good start,_ Buffy thought.  She began to perk up again as Angel covered her lid and the skin beneath her brow with the pearly color.

He glanced over at the top she had chosen once more and his hand drifted over the various options.  She watched with interest.  He landed on a shade of light gray.

Buffy bit back another twinge of disappointment.  Obviously he wasn't in the mood for any "hot peacock hues."  Still, the color wasn't a bad one.  A bit conservative, maybe. It was more of a daytime choice.  Sort of light for an evening affair.  It probably wouldn't show up very well in the dim lights of a restaurant.

She tried not to notice that he wasn't attempting to sing for her.  Come to think of it, Buffy had never heard Angel sing.  Maybe that line of the poem was just one of those nice fantasies no one ever really wants to act out.

 

_The darkest pigment crush_

_For sensual, sultry smoke_

_Around the edges of the eyes;_

_Let tinctures merge and meld_

_As shadows in the night._

_Round about the rim_

_Where lovely lid meets lash_

_In straight and sable stroke_

_With inky onyx lush_

_Draw dusky line baroque._

_Trace lightly_

_Her pale liquid orbs._

 

Angel chose to use the gray as the primary color for her lid, crease, and the outer corners of her eyes.  He was putting it on a bit heavy, so even if it didn't quite reach the smoky level, it should at least have a sort of silvery effect.  So that was okay.

He followed it up with a decent stroke of eyeliner. At first seemed fairly comfortable with this part of the process.  Buffy supposed he was relieved to be holding something familiar like a pencil.  He had a steady hand, but she heard him swear under his breath as he dragged the utensil across the loose skin of her eyelid.  Evidently, he wasn't used to a medium more pliable than paper.  Finally, he reached for the mascara.

 

_The lashes which lay nude,_

_Cherished upon the cheek,_

_Naked in their natural state,_

_Unguarded and unsafe,_

_Cover with armored cloak_

_The paint like shielding plate_

_Safeguarding her visage sleek_

_From trials rough and rude,_

_And churlish winds that chafe_

_My bonnie bower-mate._

_See how_

_The little strands flutter._

 

Angel spent several minutes shifting the mascara brush back and forth in his hands, as if he couldn't figure out which way to hold the thing.  Then, when he finally found an angle he was comfortable with, he started to coat the top of her lashes instead of the underside.  By the time he had figured out his mistake, Buffy's lashes had become hopelessly clumped and the area around her eye streaked with excess mascara.

She could tell he was growing flustered.  That would have been cute enough to make up for the mistakes if it hadn't been so completely clear that he was not enjoying himself at all.  Buffy was having a hard time keeping back the surge of disappointment that had been building ever since they first started.  She had been dreaming about this since she had first read his poem.  It had seemed so romantic.  And she had thought it was something _he_ had wanted.  But instead he was treating the whole thing like some complicated piece of machinery he had been asked to put together without a manual.

"It doesn't have to be perfect, Angel," she said reassuringly.  She tried to smile at him, but the effect was ruined by the fact that her eyes were now stinging and watering profusely.

He looked up at her uneasily.  "No, of course not.  It's just--it's just that I'm not used to my hands feeling like this," he said somewhat defensively.

Oh.  Of course.  That made sense.  He was used to having a vampire's senses and control of his body.  Suddenly being human again probably did feel a little weird.  No wonder he was being unusually clumsy.

"I understand," she said quickly.  "We can do this some other time if you want..."

"No, it's okay!  Really.  Anyway, I'm almost finished,” he stammered a little, looking at her for confirmation.  "I am, right?  It's just the blush and lipstick left?"

She nodded numbly, struggling not to appear hurt about how relieved he seemed at the thought.  Technically, the poem had gone on a bit longer than that, but she was starting to realize that she was better off cutting her losses here.  Clearly, Angel wasn't finding this sexy.  

He fumbled through the colors, searching for the blush.  Buffy bit her lip, wondering how the same person who seemed so eager to be done with this whole task could have written the words she had been memorizing by heart every night for nearly a year.

 

_Burnish the cheekbone_

_Of svelte and spectral skin_

_With rouge of royal rose,_

_For incandescence of flesh_

_Would indecorously expose_

_The secret of my sovereign_

_Who dwells above the rabble din_

_Splendid on her stately throne_

_Poise without, power within_

_Reclined in regal repose._

_Kneel meekly_

_Before the Nile-Queen._

The night Angel had given her the book, Buffy had felt completely powerless.  And it had scared her.  As much as she might want her love life to be normal, she never wanted to lose her role as the Slayer again.  When she had first read that passage, it had spoken to her directly.  She supposed the lines were a little ostentatious on the surface.  Buffy knew she was no Cleopatra, reclining upon fancy cushions.  But the lines made her _feel_ powerful and special.  Like she could tame lions.  But right now, she just felt like a silly little girl who had apparently read way too much into her boyfriend's poem.

Angel found the blush and dashed a little bit across her cheekbones, then quickly reached for the lip pencil and began sharpening it.  Buffy couldn't help still holding on to a last little bit of hope.  Would he slow down for this part?  Focusing on her lips would surely bring up _some_ feelings of intimacy, especially after everything they'd shared this afternoon.

 

_Now lavish upon her lips_

_The boundary or borderline_

_That riotous riches wraps_

_In satin outline opulent,_

_Filling with glamorous gloss:_

_Airy blush that honey drips_

_Or pleasing ocher perhaps?_

_Yet best is crimson sauce_

_Scarlet and succulent_

_Voluptuous as the vine._

_Pause a spell_

_To taste ambrosia._

Her boyfriend brought the pencil to her lip.  This time, at least, he had learned to expect the texture, so he was able to outline her lips without difficulty.  He grabbed a stick of lipstick and twisted it open without glancing at his color options.  It seemed like he was growing more eager to escape the situation by the minute.  Luckily, the lipstick was a pale shade that worked with everything else he had chosen.  He put it on her quickly.

"There you go," he announced, and began putting the rest of the makeup back in the bag.  Buffy wasn't quite sure how to respond.

"Uh...thanks," she finally managed.

"No problem.  I'll go call the restaurant and make our reservation while you get dressed."  He said it lightly, but he didn't look at her before walking out the bedroom door.

"Okay then," she whispered as she watched him disappear from the room.  Buffy sat back down on the bed, feeling slightly shell-shocked.  That was it?  No double checking his work?  No caressing her face?  No tasting ambrosia?

She walked over to her suitcase and pulled out a brush.  She pulled it through her hair with uncharacteristic roughness.  A lump formed in her throat as she thought about the last two stanzas of the poem.

 

_Dress now the downy hair:_

_With polished silver brush_

_Of bristles made of boar_

_Free fluid flowing locks_

_And gild the flower fair._

_Strong and steady strokes--_

_Rhythmic without rush--_

_Can my princess coax_

_And quiet mon amour._

_Plait loosely,_

_And add ribbons._

_Robe her in ravishing gown,_

_Velvet or silk or satin fine,_

_And cast over dainty collar_

_A precious chain of pearls_

_Or silver-strand or gold_

_That clasps under curls,_

_Long pendants for each lobe_

_And crystal jewels to crown_

_The queen of swirls and twirls,_

_This madcap monarch mine._

_She rises_

_To rule the night._

 

Apparently, her boyfriend was uninterested helping her rule the night.  In fact, he seemed like he wanted nothing more than to get through the whole task as quickly as possible.  She had thought it was going to be an experience they could share.  Instead he seemed to view it as a chore.

She didn't get it.  It wasn't that Angel putting on her makeup was so important to her.  Buffy knew that most men probably wouldn't have done half as well as he had.  It was just...his poem had made it sound like he knew what he was doing.  Like he had done before and _wanted_ to do it for her.  

Maybe that was the problem.  Maybe it had sounded all romantic when he was writing it but actually doing it made him think of his past.  But that didn't bother Buffy.  After all, it wasn't like he was the same person that Darla had sired.  He had his soul now, so anything intimate he did should mean a lot more because it was based on real love instead of obsession.  So why had he freaked out so horribly about the whole thing?

Buffy pushed back the tears in her eyes as she zipped herself into her nicest jeans.  She would not cry over this.  She would not.  It was silly and Angel would know and she absolutely _would not_ let this ruin her happy day.

 _Big picture, Buffy,_ she told herself firmly.  Her boyfriend was alive.  He loved her.  They were together.  If you wanted to build a future with someone, you didn't sweat the small stuff.  It was just makeup.  With any luck, it would all come off when they got home anyway.

She slipped on her most comfortable pair of dress slippers, grabbed a cardigan, and headed out of the bedroom.  It was time to be Mature Buffy and put the real man who loved her before any imaginary experience she had built up in her mind.

 

**********

 

Angel headed back to his apartment at a rapid pace.  The Oracles' deal had left him feeling both guilty and relieved.  He knew it wasn't really fair to Buffy not to tell her about his decision in advance.  But if he tried to barter for more time with her, his beautiful Slayer might convince him to change his mind.  And Angel was sure he had made the right decision.  He couldn't be human for Buffy.  She needed him to fight by her side as a vampire, not weigh her down as a liability.  

 _Which any human boyfriend she chose would be,_ a little voice in his head whispered.   _Wasn't that why you left her?  Because you wanted her to have a nice, normal, breakable wanker of a boyfriend?_

Angel ignored the voice.  That was different.  Buffy wouldn't ever be as invested in another man as she was in him.  He was always going to be her biggest emotional weak spot.  For her sake, he couldn't afford to be physically handicapped.  He needed to be able to protect her in the battle that was coming.

Besides, it was better this way.  Buffy wouldn't be any worse off.  She wouldn't have to bear the memory of all their lost possibilities.  As far as she would be concerned, they would still be the same star crossed lovers they had always been.  And she could wear the memory of their impossible love as a talisman, like those insects that were preserved forever in amber.

 _Because they're dead, you dolt,_ the voice whispered again.  Why did that nagging voice always sound like Spike?

Angel tightened his grip on the steering wheel.  He should never have given Buffy that book.  He wondered briefly if she had brought it with her.  Maybe he could sneak it out of her bag after the day reversed?  He dismissed the thought.  Even if she had the book on her, it would be too difficult to manage without her noticing.

He had been stunned by her request this afternoon.  Why the hell did a grown woman want someone else to do her makeup?  And the mirror excuse was ridiculous.  Darla had never needed a mirror to get herself ready.  Granted, she had been doing it back when it was a sign of her trade instead of a mark of respectability.  But still.

It wasn't until she mentioned the book that it started to dawn on him what it had all been about.  Of course he should have known it would be a Spike thing.  It didn't surprise Angel that the runt had written some lovesick scribbles about doing his sire's makeup.  It had been their evening routine, even in their last days together at the mansion.  Getting Drusilla ready to go out could be an epic battle.  She would claw and scratch at her caretaker until he bled.  

But Spike never seemed to mind.  He had turned the whole thing into a perverse display of adoration.  Angelus had allowed it because he didn't have the patience for it himself.  Besides, it had been fun to see the younger vampire scramble to hold onto Dru's affection...

He should have just told Buffy the truth.  Or at least part of it.  She would have been a bit miffed, but she probably would forgive him for giving her something that had belonged to someone else as long as he told her hadn't known about the writings inside.  After all, it was really just like getting something used from the bookstore.  She didn't have to know who its previous owner had been.

But had seen the hopeful look in her eye when she mentioned the book.  And something inside him rebelled at being shown up by his old rival.  If Spike could do it for Drusilla, then surely _he_ could do it for Buffy.  After all, it was just another form of art.  And he was good at that.

Unfortunately, he wasn't familiar with either the materials or the medium.  He supposed it wasn't difficult if you did it every day like Spike had, but Angel had quickly realized that he had dabbled in something that took practice.  He had done his best to relate it to the things he knew.  That was why he had chosen to use the grey to shade Buffy's eyes like one of his own sketches.  But whatever she had been imagining, clearly he had failed to live up to it.  Angel had noticed the disappointment in her face and it had been like a shadow over the afternoon's sunshine.  

That was the other reason they couldn't be together.  Even if Buffy never pressured him on something written in that damn book again, he couldn't possibly live up to the expectations she had for their future.  He knew what she was hoping because it was the dream he had spun for her when he left Sunnydale. 

It had dawned on him as he struggled to put makeup on her face that it wasn't just a dream anymore.  This was real.  This was permanent.  They had the possibility of an actual relationship.  They kind where you had to learn to live with one another through the daily grind of life.  And with a sudden flash of horrified insight, he realized that he wasn't sure he could do it.  Angel knew how to want.  He didn't know how to have.

He pulled up in front of the office and looked down at the clock on his radio.  The day was supposed to reset at 9:00 p.m.  It was 8:50. It was too late to alter his course, too late to find out if he had what it took to build a life with someone.  He killed the engine, a pit forming in his stomach.  He should have let Buffy change his mind.  But he hadn't.  With a deep sigh, Angel forced himself out of the car to spend his last few minutes as a mortal man with the woman he was giving up.

 

******************

 

Buffy crawled beneath her bedcovers, grateful her yummy sushi pajamas had been clean.  It had been an awful day.  The conversation with Angel in LA had been brief and awkward.  She hadn't felt up to staying with her father afterward, so she had just bought a return ticket for the afternoon and come back to Sunnydale.

She slid the small volume off her nightstand and clicked her flashlight on, careful to keep the setting low enough not to disturb Willow.  She flipped the pages to the last handwritten poem.   _Playing Mirror._   She traced the words lightly, a small ache in her chest.  She had let another opportunity to ask him about the poems slip by.  

Buffy supposed it was for the best.  There was no point asking about things that could never be.  She was never going to feel the cool touch of her vampire's hands caressing her face, never going to feel him pull a brush through her hair.  Maybe Willow was right.  Maybe she needed a relationship with less heartache.  She should find herself a nice, normal, human...

The exhaustion of the day overwhelmed Buffy and she fell asleep, her finger still holding her place in the book of love poems.


	7. Dear Diary

_October  24, 2000_

_Dear Diary,_

_Buffy is such a byotch!  I don't even get how we share the same mother.  But I guess, according to her, we don't.  After all, that would mean we were related.  And apparently we're not.  Well, that's just fine by me.  I never wanted an older sister anyway!_

_She was acting really weird tonight.  I walked in to find her standing in my bedroom, staring at my things like they were from some sort of freak show.  Or like she thought maybe I'd stolen something of hers.  As if I would.  Except for, you know, the stuff in the bottom of my dresser.  But that totally doesn't count!  She doesn't wear any of those things anymore._

_Anyway, I was so mad!  I mean, just a few hours earlier she was refusing to let me into HER room.  What makes her think that she can just waltz into MY room like she owns the place?  If I'm not allowed in her room, she shouldn't be allowed into mine._

_But then she turned around and just out of the blue said I wasn't her sister.  And she said it really viciously, too.  Like she really meant it.  And then I tried to snap back at her and she grabbed my arm and twisted it.  I know she didn't use her full strength, or my arm would be broken right now, but it still hurt really badly.  But not as much as what she said.  She was going on and on about ME hurting HER and told me to stay away from HER mother.  It was so scary.  Like one of those nightmares where someone you love turns on you.  Except it was real._

_Then she ran downstairs and I heard her on the phone with Giles, whispering about something.  I think it must have been about me because when she saw me she shut up really quickly.  And then she said she was going out in this really threatening tone.  I told her Mom was coming home soon._

_After she left the house, I ran upstairs and watched her stomp down the sidewalk and run straight into Spike.  He's this really badass vampire who's tried to kill her like dozens of times but can't now because the stupid government put some sort of chip in his head and he can't bite anyone.  Anyway, he's been hanging about the yard a lot, and Buffy totally hasn't noticed.  You'd think the Slayer would realize when there was a vampire nearby._

_But I guess she finally figured it out because she yanked him out into the open and socked him right in the nose.  And he hadn't even done anything!  I mean, yeah, he's tried to kill her.  But she's tried to kill him a lot too.  She can be so mean sometimes.  But I must admit, it made me feel a little better to see that I wasn't the only one she was freaking out on._

_Still, she shouldn't be able to get away with whaling on everyone just because she has super strength.  I'm gonna find some way of paying her back, just you watch!  Maybe I'll hide Mr. Gordo or that stupid book that Angel gave her._

_Later_

_Now I'm really confused.  Whatever caused Buffy to go apeshit earlier, she seems to have done a complete 180 on me now.  I thought at first it was just because Mom beat her home and she didn't want to make a scene.  I'm glad, because Mom's got enough to worry about, with her headaches and all.  I had just finished making myself some tea when she came home.  She asked about Buffy, and I REALLY wanted to tell her what had happened but she looked so tired that I just told her not to worry and gave her my tea instead.  I told her I made it for her, which is a little white lie, but I had to say it because Mom knows I only drink the chamomile when I'm upset and she would ask questions._

_Anyway, we were just sitting there chatting about her art gallery when Buffy came home.  I thought she was going to yell at me again but she didn't, and when I ran upstairs she followed me and apologized.  It wasn't a very good apology, given how weird she was acting and how badly she scared me.  But it was something.  So I guess I'll return Mr. Gordo to her.  But I'm still kind of mad, so the book is going to stay missing for awhile._

_She needs a break from reading that overdramatic crap anyway.  It can't be healthy to be reading your ex's books when you've got a new boyfriend in your life--even if Riley is kind of boring.  Besides, you know what Angel wrote on the first page?  "Always."  And that was, like, just a few months before he hightailed it out of this lame town!  Honestly, I was so annoyed that I shut the book and didn't read anymore.  If you ask me, Buffy should have staked his lame rear end the first time he showed up acting all mysterious.  But of course, no one ever asks my opinion.  So there you go._

_**********_

_November 21, 2000_

_Dear Diary,_

_Something's wrong with Mom.  I found out just this morning that she spent all last night in the hospital being observed by doctors.  Buffy didn't make me go to school this morning so we both sort of waited in the hospital for the doctors do this CAT scan thingy and figure out what is causing her headaches._

_I just knew it.  I knew something was off.  Mom has never had a problem with migraines before.  Not even with all the bright lights at the gallery.  I just wish my gut hadn't been right about the whole thing._

_I think Buffy must have known something was wrong as well.  She's been antsy all day.  I mean, I got really tired and ended up falling asleep in the waiting room, but she just couldn't seem to sit still.  When I woke up, she was gone.  Riley was there with me, and he said she had gone back to the Magic Box to check in with Giles and the others.  He said we still don't know anything, but I get the feeling he's lying because he didn't really look me in the eye when he said it._

_But at least he was nice enough to wrap me in his jacket.  And then before he took me back to school, he bought me an ice cream and sat with me in the park while I ate it. Since he was being so sweet, I decided to tell him about how good he was for Buffy compared to Angel.  He started questioning me about them and I told him how crazy and obsessive that whole Shakespearean tragedy was and how glad I was that he and Buffy weren't like that.  For some reason, it didn't seem to make him happy._

_Then on the walk to school he started asking questions about Spike.  Apparently he caught him in our house.  That doesn't surprise me.  Spike's been hanging around a lot lately.  Mom really likes him, probably because he seems to know a lot about art for someone who wears mostly black.  And I know he's been snitching some of Buffy's clothes, which is a little weird and creepy.  But hey, vampire, right?  Angel used to sneak into her room all the time, but it never seemed to bother her to walk in on that loser cuddling Mr. Gordo.  Buffy's blamed me for a few of the items, but I've decided not to rat on Spike.  Buffy might stake him over it and I don't really want that.  He's kind of cool._

_Anyway, I couldn't concentrate on my schoolwork 'cause I kept thinking about Mom all afternoon.  I couldn't wait to get off and go to the Magic Box where there would at least be some distractions.  And boy, did I get a big one!  This giant snake burst through the window and slithered straight toward me.  I've been kidnapped by a lot of monsters in Sunnydale, but gigantic cobras?  Massively scary.  I pretty much screamed bloody murder, which was good because the snake just looked at me and darted away.  I guess it doesn't like screaming.  Seems like that would be a liability for a monster.  Anyway, Buffy chased after it and slayed the thing, and I was left to worry about Mom again._

_Now we're back at the hospital and Mom's awake.  Buffy's in there right now, talking with her.  They must think it's bad, if I have to wait outside while Mom finds out the results. I'm really glad I've got you, dear diary, to keep my mind off things.  I kind of feel bad for Buffy.  She needs something less violent than killing monsters to occupy her mind.  I guess I should give her back her stupid poetry book._

_I should go now.  It sounds like they're almost ready for me.  Talk to you later._

_**********_

_January 20, 2001_

_Dear Diary,_

_Sorry it's been so long since I wrote to you.  Things have just been really, really busy.  Thankfully all the truly life-and-death stuff is behind us now.  Mom's headaches turned out to be a brain tumor, and I was so scared there for a while that I couldn't bear to write about anything.  I was afraid seeing it in print would make it feel too real._

_But I don't mind telling you now that it's over that I was really worried there for awhile that Mom was going to die.  It was just too awful to think about.  I don't know what I would do without her.  Luckily, the tumor was operable and Mom seems to be doing so much better now.  The doctor says it seems like she's out of the woods for the time being.  Buffy and I promised her a special Christmas to celebrate._

_But Buffy wasn't in the mood for holiday cheer when it came around.  Because the real reason I started to write again is that her loser boyfriend left her.  I totally take back all the good things I said about Riley in my last entry.  I mean, it was like only six days till Christmas, and he just up and left!  Flew away to South America with his old macho buddies with their guns and code words.  Buffy's been really weird about it all month.  She seems to alternate between being perfectly fine and then totally weepy with no warning._

_And she's started reading that poetry book again.  She had sort of stopped when Mom got better, but now it's been sitting on her dresser whenever she comes home.  It's probably by her bed at college too.  I guess she doesn't know now which lost love to mope about more.  Granted, I don't have any personal experience with relationships--middle school boys are SO immature--but I don't really think that's a good thing.  I mean, what does it say if you're still reading something your first ex gave to you when you just broke up with another guy?  Angel must have really screwed her up pretty badly._

_I'm really trying to be sympathetic.  I went into her bedroom yesterday after she finally took down all of Riley's pictures.  We talked and cuddled and did the sister thing.  I told her I had just been starting to like Riley, which was true.  But I didn't tell her that I don't like him anymore.  'Cause while I don't know exactly why he left, I know it was bad.  And I know it was probably more his fault than hers._

_The reason I know all this is that I saw him sneak out of her room the night before he left.  Spike's been hanging out under that tree again (I don't know how Buffy has managed to remain so clueless about him being in love with her.  I mean, could he BE more obvious?), and I saw him follow Riley.  Then he came back and climbed into Buffy's bedroom. A few minutes later, they both went out her window.  I couldn't tell what it was about, and I didn't get the chance to ask Buffy the next day._

_But after Riley ran off, I marched straight down to Spike's crypt and demanded to know what had happened.  Buffy wouldn't really like me being there, but I don't care.  Spike's never tried to kill me or Mom, and to be honest, she's left him plenty of chances over the years.  And I think he kind of thought I was funny, interrogating him like I was the Slayer.  Anyway, he hemmed and hawed and kept avoiding my questions.  And if SPIKE won't tell me, then it must be really bad._

_Plus, I think Riley hurt Spike.  He kept trying to hide the fact that he had some sort of open wound on his chest.  But I saw some of his blood seeping through his shirt, right over his heart.  And there was another shirt sitting on the floor that I picked up when his back was turned.  It had a hole in it, and it was wadded up with a plastic stake that I've seen Riley playing with when he was bored.  It's some sort of Initiative thing.  I'm not sure what they used them for, but I think Riley staked Spike with it.  And that's just kind of sick._

_But I don't want to tell Buffy about that.  She thinks that Riley was some sort of paragon of all-Americanness or something.  And I guess it doesn't matter now.  As long as he stays away in South America where he can't bully any more dopey love-struck undead guys, there's no reason to shatter her white-picket image of him.  I just hope she gets over him sometime soon because I don't think I can take the mood swings much longer._

_**********_

_February 6, 2001_

_Dear Diary,_

_Buffy's been acting weird again.  Not about Riley, though.  I think that drama has mostly passed, thank goodness.  No, it's something Slayer-related.  And it's not just her.  The other Scoobies have been acting freaky as well.  I think it has to do with that Glory chick who showed up in our living room looking for some sort of key.  Apparently she's the new baddie in town and has Buffy and the Scoobies all running scared.  They even brought in the whole Watcher's Council because of her.  I thought Buffy hated them._

_Mom and I were holed up in Spike's crypt when the Council was in town.  I guess Buffy was worried that Glory might try to kidnap us or something while she was dealing with them.  Being in his place was really awkward at first.  I mean, Spike's been in our house before, but the only time I've ever actually been inside his crypt was when I was trying to get information on Riley, and that was pretty quick.  This was the first time I've ever stopped and looked around.  It was really dirty, and apparently he keeps his blood in the refrigerator.  Ick.  Mom was a bit shocked when she walked in. She made some sort of politely strained comment about the state of the place in that passive agressive voice that only she knows how to use._

_I think Spike was embarrassed because he got all grumpy and defensive and told us not to touch anything.  But he softened up once he found out that Mom likes Passions.  So I guess they have another thing in common.  Mom's comment must have made some sort of impression, though.  After Passions was over, Spike went around the crypt casually straightening things.  He had this huge pile of books back in one corner, so Mom went over and started going through the titles like she was trying to pick one out.  It was pretty obvious she was just trying to stack them neatly without offending him, but he let her do it.  I helped a little._

_You know what?  He has really sappy tastes in literature for a vampire.  We're talking Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters. And the poetry!  His collection would leave my English teacher drooling.  It reminded me of that book that Angel gave Buffy.  I wonder if poetry is like a thing with vampires or something.  Maybe they're all really into it?_

_Anyway, hanging out in his crypt wouldn't have been too bad if I wasn't so frustrated that I was being left out of the loop again.  I mean, I wouldn't even have known about the Council being in town if Anya hadn't said something. She was really worried that they would find out she was an ex-demon.  Which I guess makes sense.  I'd hate for them to take her away because Anya has gone from being an annoyance to one of my favorite people because she accidentally lets slip a lot of stuff I'm not supposed to hear._

_I think she was about to let something else slip earlier today but Xander pulled her away before I could question her about why everyone is acting so psycho around me.  'Cause that's the thing.  Whatever it is, I think it's also about me.  They've been trying hard to seem casual, but they're all looking at me like I've grown a tail or something.  What's worse is that I think even Mom knows. And I KNOW Giles was trying to hide a book from me in the Magic Box.  The whole thing is driving me crazy!  I mean, if there's something wrong with me, shouldn't I know about it?_

_They're all coming over for Buffy's birthday party tonight.  I've already decided.  If they don't tell me what on earth is going on this evening, I'm finding out myself.  Buffy's not the only one who knows how to sneak out of the house after dark.  I'm gonna figure out what's in that book behind Giles' counter._

 

**********

_February 9, 2001_

_Dear Diary,_

_It's been three days since I found out the truth and I'm still in shock.  I'm not real.  My memories aren't real.  My family isn't real---or at least they aren't my family in the normal sense.  Buffy says we are sisters though.  She says we share the same blood.  Maybe she's right.  I do feel slightly better knowing that there's some sort of real biological connection, even if it was magicked into existence._

_I suppose I should tell you how I found out.  I couldn't get any information out of the Scoobies at Buffy's party, so while they all thought I was asleep I went to Plan B.  I managed to get out of the house without being noticed, but I ran into Spike in the front yard.  Because OF COURSE he would be there.  He always is.  He tried to scare me out of going, but it didn't really work with him sitting there holding a box of chocolates for Buffy like a dope.  But he had a point about it being dangerous and I realized I had forgotten to bring a stake.  Luckily he seemed pretty willing to go along with me.  I know he just did it to get on Buffy's good side, but it was still kind of nice to have a badass vampire guarding me.  And he knew how to pick the lock to get us in._

_But it wasn't long after we broke in that I wished we hadn't.  Because the stuff Giles was trying to hide from me?  It said I'm not really the daughter of Hank and Joyce Summers. It said that I'm actually some mystical blob of energy--a key of some sort--that some monks made into a person.  Everything I am--my whole childhood--is a lie to make sure Buffy would protect me.  Reading it all made me feel like everything inside me was running out, leaving me hollow._

_I was really glad Spike was there with me because he took the news better me.  Better than anyone, apparently.  When he started reading the description of the Key, he just looked over me and said really casually, "Well, I guess that's you, pet."  He gave me one long look and then just patted me on the back a little awkwardly and then we left.  It didn't seem to make as much of a difference to him as it did to the Scoobies.  He didn't stare at me like some kind of freak.  His calmness was pretty much the only thing keeping me together on the walk home._

_It broke down as soon as he left me on the back doorstep.  I got this overwhelming urge to cut myself open and see if I had anything inside me.  And of course everyone freaked out.  Mom and Buffy tried to comfort me the next day but I just couldn't deal with it.  And then later that night, I heard Buffy telling Mom exactly what I feared--that I wasn't a real person._

_And something inside me just broke.  I screamed and tore at everything in my room.  It was all lies.  My stuffed animals.  My kindergarten projects.   All those other diaries.  I burned them all.  I almost burned you too, dear diary, but something held me back.  I think it was that Buffy said I had only been alive for six months.  I started writing in you in October, which means you're the only diary I have that holds my actual thoughts._

_After I burned all the fake stuff I climbed out of the window and wandered around Sunnydale.  Somehow I ended up at the hospital, so I decided to check out the mental ward to see if any of the crazy people knew something about what I was.  It didn't help.  Ben was there and he made me hot chocolate and then...I don't know, I guess he left.  That part's a little fuzzy._

_And then Glory showed up and I thought I was going to die, but I kept trying to find out what she knew about me.  I asked her if the Key was evil and she said it was.  But then she sort of backtracked and said it depended on how you looked at it.  Then Buffy and the Scoobies showed up and there was this whole big fight and Glory got away but I didn't die.  That's when Buffy told me we shared the same blood._

_I think she's telling the truth, but it would be a lot easier to swallow if everyone hadn't treated me like a space alien as soon as they found out.  Spike was the only one who treated me the same.  He was there too, which was a little bit surprising.  I guess he is winning brownie points with Buffy after all._

_I still don't know what to make of everything, but I have decided two things.  First, I don't want  you, dear diary, to look anything like all those phony entries the monks made up for my past.  Those aren't really my words.  So I've decided to name you.  None of the other diaries had names.  I'm going to call you Verity.  That was on our vocab quiz last week.  It means truth.  And Ms. Gutierrez says it's also a girl's name, so it will feel like talking to a friend._

_The second thing I've decided is that I want to make a real friend.  It's not that I mind hanging out with Janice.  After all, it's not her fault the monks decided to make her my "bestie."  But I need someone who wasn't forced into caring about me by having fake memories shoved into their heads.  It'll have to be someone I didn't have a lot of interaction with before six months ago.  I'm not sure who right now but it will come to me.  I just need this.  I need someone to care about me for me._

_**********_

_February 25, 2001_

_Dear Verity,_

_Spike's not allowed in the house anymore.  Apparently there was some big to-do where his crazy ex-girlfriend came into town and he chained her and Buffy up.  Now Buffy's made Willow do the same dis-invite spell she did for Angel and Harmony. Except it sounds like she asked her to do it BEFORE the whole chaining up bit.  Which means she's punishing him for being in love with her, not for the whole bondage thing.  That doesn't really seem fair.  Buffy insists that he's just an evil vampire and we can't trust him.  But I think she's full of it.  If she really thought he was a danger, she would stake him, not dis-invite him._

_Mom says we have to respect Buffy's wishes, so I'm not allowed to invite him back in.  But Buffy can't keep me from hanging out with him.  I don't care what she says.  Since finding out the truth about my Keyness, I've gone to his crypt every single day after school lets out.  He's the only one who doesn't talk to me like a child.  The others have stopped being so secretive, but now they're getting WAY overprotective.  Spike's the only one who actually bothers to treat me like I'm not just going to shatter into a zillion pieces if I hear something scary._

_I tried to ask him what had happened with Buffy and Drusilla but he didn't want to talk about it.  He just shook his head and said that he had buggered everything up as usual. That's one of the things I like about him.  He's not afraid to use swear words--or at least the British ones--in front of me.  I looked up that word.  There's a good reason he never uses language like that around Mom.  He still checks in with her, I know.  She won't invite him in because of Buffy, but she does sit on the back porch and drink hot chocolate with him.  She offered him some tea once, but he turned his nose up at the tea bag._

_I've joined them a couple of times, but I prefer hanging out in his crypt.  It's kind of cool, in a creepy sort of way.  A bit like him, I guess.  He's been keeping it a lot cleaner now that he has company.  And he's been adding new bits of furniture and candles and expanding down to the lower level.  At first he wouldn't let me go down there, but that was because he was apparently hiding some sort of weird shrine to Buffy.  Now that all that's been exposed he's been a lot more relaxed about letting me explore.  He's got a bed set up down there and this big beautiful rug.  And he's turned this old locker thing into a bookcase for all those books Mom and I helped stack._

_Did I mention his music collection?_   _I don't know where he found it, but Spike's got this old record player set up in the back of his crypt and all these old records from decades ago.  He said he had them stashed in another town and brought them back to Sunnydale with him last year to drown out Harmony's voice.  I don't blame him.  But his music collection is really sweet.  He's got everything from Beethoven to the Ramones.  I tried to introduce him to the Backstreet Boys but he told me that wasn't real music. He said real music, even the really classical stuff, was primal.  Like poetry._

_But when I asked him my question about whether all vampires liked poetry, he nearly choked on his pig's blood.  And can I say "eww" to that sight?  He asked where on earth I'd gotten such a barmy idea and I told him about Angel's book.  That really surprised him.  He said Angel wouldn't know real poetry from a Hallmark card.  He asked who the poet was, but I honestly didn't remember.  I offered to check for him but he waved me off.  He said he really didn't want to hear about whatever tripe Angel had sold to Buffy.  Oh well._

_Spike says chip or no chip, he'll rip out my larynx and drain me dry if I ever tell anyone about his poetry collection.  I just rolled my eyes.  He's always making empty threats like that.  If he really wanted me dead, he would have just handed me over to Glory the moment he found out I was the Key.  He probably could have bartered me in exchange for having his chip removed.  But honestly?  He's not even evil enough to think of that._

_School's been kind of boring lately.  Somehow, the spring semester always seems longer than the fall.  I've been on the lookout for my new friend, but it's been a bit harder than I expected.  The girls in my grade are all snobs.  And I think Janice is starting to get jealous when I talk to them.  I'll probably have to look somewhere other than middle school. Maybe I should volunteer somewhere._

_Mom just called me down to dinner.  I'm so glad she's feeling better.  Buffy's a terrible cook._

_**********_

_February 27, 2001_

_Dear Verity,_

_Something horrible has just happened.  I-I can't talk about it.  It's not real.  It can't be.  It's just a dream.  I'm gonna wake up any moment now._

_**********_

_April 1, 2001_

_Dear Verity,_

_It's not a dream.  It's not even a really bad April Fools joke.  Mom is really dead.  I saw her.  I snuck into the hospital morgue and saw her body.  I touched her hand.  It was cold._

_Buffy hasn't hardly even looked at me.  She's just been running around, planning things and acting like Mom being gone is just a big inconvenience.  Like it's just about ticking off the right boxes._

_Today, they put her in this fancy wooden box that this skeezy guy sold us and stuck her in the ground.  I was holding onto Buffy the whole time.  Everyone was crying.  It was like a scene from a movie.  Except it was happening to me._

_I wish it hadn't been in the middle of the day.  I wanted Spike to be there too.  I think the Scoobies are trying to keep him away.  They don't want him bothering Buffy or "taking advantage" of her grief.  The only time I've seen him the past few days was when he tried to leave some flowers for Mom last night.  I saw him through the window and started to come down, but Willow and Xander got to him before I could.  I saw him arguing with the two of them and then he threw his bouquet on the ground and stormed off.  Willow came inside and gave me the flowers.  I put them in the grave with Mom's coffin during the ceremony.  Buffy thought they were from me._

_I wanted Spike to be there so I could ask what it was like to be dead.  I guess it's not the same thing, though.  Vampires aren't dead the same way Mom is dead.  Mom's is the permanent kind._

_Or is it?_

_Maybe there's some way she can come back.  I mean, there's magic for all sorts of stuff.  Locating lost things, restoring souls, and even turning a blob of green light into a girl and making everyone think they've known her all along.  Why wouldn't there be some way to bring back a dead person?  I mean, not as a vampire.  I know that's too risky.  They don't all turn out like Spike.  But surely there's another way?_

_It's not fair.  Most of my memories of Mom are fake.  She didn't really carry me around in her womb.  She didn't take pictures of me on my first day of kindergarten.  We didn't spend the day shopping whenever Buffy was off at the ice capades with Dad._

_Buffy had her whole life with Mom.  I only had a few real months._

_I want more._

_I'm going to ask Willow and Tara about it when they get back from the cafeteria.  I'm spending the night in their dorm room tonight.  But if they won't help me, I'll find a way on my own._

_Either way, I'm doing this.  I'm getting Mom back._

**********

_April 3, 2001_

_Dear Verity,_

_Mom's not coming back.  It's not that I didn't go through with my plan.  I did, up until the very end.  But I couldn't let the magic finish its work._

_Tara tried to warn me.  She tried to tell me that there were some things you don't mess with, some rules even witches have to follow.  But I didn't get it.  I was too annoyed at her stupid line about Mom moving into place in my heart.  That's not the same thing.  Besides, I thought I could handle any consequence if it meant having Mom back.  I didn't understand until the last moment what Tara meant about not messing with life and death._

_Willow seemed to understand where I was coming from.  She even pointed me in the direction of the resurrection spell.  And I finally found something I thought I could use in the restricted section of the Magic Box, where Giles and Anya keep all the dark stuff that they require background checks for before they sell it to people. Or at least they've been doing that ever since the snake incident._

_I thought I was busted for sure when Spike found me with the book at Mom's graveside.  But instead of sending back home to the Scoobies, he offered to help.  He took me to this creepy old man's home.  I swear I saw a tail peeping out of his housecoat.  He gave me an incantation and told us we needed the egg of a Gorah demon.  I guess that was nice of him, but something happened to eyes when he shook my hand that scared the living daylights out of me.  I don't know what he was, but I am NEVER going back there._

_Spike helped me get the Gorah egg too, and it was a good thing he was there because I definitely would have died if I had tried it on my own.  Spike and I barely made out as it was. And the Gorah bit him, which was kind of my fault for dropping the first egg and going back for a second.  But Spike told me not to be sorry as long as I got what I needed._

_But when I got home and tried the spell, Buffy burst in on me and tried to stop it.  And then all of a sudden everything came rushing out and I started yelling at her.  And she-she slapped me.  But then she started crying.  She said she'd been running around because she was afraid when she stopped, Mom would really be dead.  And she was scared because she didn't know who was going to take care of us.  Then there was this knock at the door and I knew the spell had worked.  And suddenly it was like Buffy had completely changed her mind and she ran to open it._

_But the moment I heard the knock, I knew.  Tara was right.  Whatever was out there, it wasn't Mom.  It was something...wrong.  And dark.  And if I let it come in, then whatever part of Mom was being forced back into her body would be poisoned forever.  And so I ripped up her picture and Buffy opened the door to nothing.  I knew it was the right thing to do, but it hurt so much to destroy the picture--like I was putting the last shovelful of dirt on her grave._

_Buffy and I sat in the doorway for an hour and just held each other.  Then after I went to bed, I heard her crying some more behind her door.  I snuck into her bedroom after I was sure she was asleep and found her curled up with her face resting on her poetry book.  I didn't want to risk waking her up, so I didn't get closer.  But I could see some of the pages were crinkled from being wet.  She must have cried on them._

_When I stopped by Spike's crypt this afternoon, he knew immediately that I hadn't finished the spell.  But he didn't get onto me for not going through with it after everything I put him through last night.  He just sort of patted me on the shoulder and said it was for the best, that Mom deserved to stay peacefully up in heaven anyway.  Maybe he knew I wouldn't do it all along.  Maybe he realized I just needed to try something._

_Something's been bothering me, though.  Last night I told him he didn't have to be nice to me because I knew he was just doing it to earn points with Buffy.  But he made me promise not to tell her, and barked at me with another empty threat.  When I asked him why he was doing it, he said he didn't like to see Summers women take it so hard on the chin._

_Summers women.  Plural._

_That's when it struck me.  He liked Mom even before he liked Buffy.  And he liked her for her own sake, not just because she was the Slayer's mom.  And I think...even though he started hanging out with me because he wanted to get a foot in Buffy's door...I think now he likes me too.  Just for me.  Buffy told me last night that I wasn't alone.  That I had her.  But I realize now that even if I didn't, I wouldn't be alone.  Because Spike is the friend I've been searching for._

_**********_

_May 1, 2001_

_Dear Verity,_

_I'm writing to you from a cave not too far from Spike's crypt.  Something bad has happened to Tara and it's all my fault.  Glory thinks she's the Key.  But she's not.  I am. Whatever she's doing to Tara should be happening to me instead.  It's like everyone who loves me gets hurt just by being in contact with me._

_I keep thinking back to what Glory said about the Key.  That it was evil.  Am I evil?  Do I even have a soul?  Or is that what all the crazy people mean when they say I'm empty?  I don't mean to be evil.  But maybe some people are evil without even trying.  Maybe it's not about intention._

_Spike says that's all rot.  That he knows evil and I'm not.  He said it with such conviction that I want to believe him, but I'm not so sure.  I mean, you should see him, Verity. Glory had him for hours. That was a week ago, but his face is still just one big bruise and he's walking with a limp. And vampires heal a lot faster than humans._

_I was so right about him.  He really is my friend.  Don't get me wrong, I know he let Glory torture him because he loves Buffy.  But he did it for me too.  I could see the relief in his eyes when he saw me earlier.  A few months ago, I was just grateful he didn't turn me over to Glory in exchange for chip removal surgery.  But this goes way beyond that. He let himself be tortured for hours on end--without any hope of rescue--just to protect the two of us.  And Buffy thinks HE'S evil.  If someone who will do all that for the people he cares about is evil, what does that make me?_

_I've got to go.  Spike says he can hear Buffy coming._

_**********_

_May 8, 2001_

_Dear Verity,_

_We've been on the road all afternoon because Glory found us this morning.  Tara accidentally let her know that I was the Key.  It wasn't her fault.  Glory had sucked her brain. We barely got away, though.  I thought we were doing well 'cause she got run over by that truck.  But Buffy said we just got lucky.  She said we had to get out of town.  All of us._

_So we packed light and escaped in this rinky-dink old RV that Spike showed up with.  Buffy was so desperate that it didn't even seem to bother her that he probably stole it.  It was hot and stinky and it didn't go very fast but at least it got us out of town.  Everyone was kind of miserable being cooped up in it, though.  Spike said he wished he'd stolen a sports car that could just fit the two of us and Buffy.  I think he was just being cranky.  He knows it would hurt Buffy if any of the Scoobies got killed because of us._

_I think Buffy's just barely staving off full-blown panic.  I've never seen her act like this before.  Every time she looks at me, I can see this horrible guilty expression in her eyes. She thinks she's failing me, I know.  I want to hug her, to reassure her it will be alright.  But I can't.  Because I'm not sure it will be._

_She almost broke down earlier.  She was going through my backpack, taking stock of what we had thrown together in our rush, and she discovered you.  I saw her go really still and I asked her what was wrong.  She told me in a tight voice that she had forgotten to pack her book.  It's still sitting at home in her dresser.  I told her it would still be there when we got back.  Glory wouldn't bother to do anything to our stuff once she realized we weren't home.  She nodded her head, but I could tell what she was thinking._

_What if we don't come back?_

_It was almost dinner time when those freaky knights caught up with us.  Seriously, who goes after an RV on horseback?  If we weren't in the single most ancient vehicle to sport a pop-up bed, we would have completely left them in the dust.  But they managed to wreck us.  And Giles got impaled with a spear and Spike's hands got sliced open.  We lost the knights for a while, but Giles was bleeding heavily and Spike was just a few minutes from dusting out in the sunlight when we finally reached this old gas station._

_Now we're holed up here and the knights are back.  Willow's holding them off with a spell.  And Giles might be dying.  Just another casualty for my tally._

_Buffy's captured the general and is trying to interrogate him.  I can't hear every word she is saying, but I can tell it isn't going well.  The Knights of Byzantium think I should be killed.  They think I'm evil and dangerous.  Maybe they're right.  Maybe everyone else would be safer if I was dead._

_I think they might get their wish._

_**********_

_May 22, 2001_

_Dear Verity,_

_Buffy is gone.  I don't know what else to say._

_**********_

_May 24, 2001_

_Dear Verity,_

_For the second time this year, I've lost someone.  I guess this makes me an orphan.  Dad doesn't really count.  It occurred to me this morning that I've never actually even met him._

_There's this hollow ache inside my chest, just like when Mom died.  Only this time it's worse.  Because in addition to the loss is this heaping helping of horrible guilt.  It should have been me jumping off that tower.  Instead, Buffy jumped in my place.  But it worked.  Because of that blood we share.  I guess we really are sisters after all.  No, we WERE sisters._

_I know Spike is feeling guilty as well.  Giles doesn't believe it.  He says soulless creatures don't feel guilt.  But Giles didn't see the look in Spike's eyes when Doc stabbed him. Maybe he doesn't feel guilty about morality.  But he definitely feels guilty about Buffy._

_He really shouldn't.  There was nothing he could have done better.  I was supposed to die.  It's only fair.  I mean, I've only been in the world for a year.  Buffy was the hero. Everyone needs her.  The Scoobies are already worried about word getting out to the Sunnydale monsters that the Slayer is dead.  On the other hand, no one needs ME.  They all did just fine without me before and would do just fine if I died.  Even Buffy._

_We're burying her this evening.  Willow has done some sort of magic to keep the grave a secret.  Only people who are at the ceremony will be able to see it.  Giles wanted a morning ceremony but I pitched a fit.  Spike didn't get to attend Mom's funeral.  I wanted him to be at Buffy's, especially if it's the only way he'll be able to visit her grave in the future.  Xander said Buffy wouldn't the evil undead at her funeral, but I told him that Buffy had invited him back in to our house before she died.  That shut him up.  Giles didn't like it, but he humored me since I'm the one with the dead sister._

_So an evening ceremony it is._

_And I guess there is someone who needs me after all.  Spike doesn't have anyone else who cares whether he lives or dusts.  I think he might choose the second option if I don't give him a reason to stick around.  He's been my friend and he's protected my life with his own this whole past year.  I think it's time I returned the favor.  If we're gonna get through this, it's gonna be together._  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realize this is an odd chapter, but it felt necessary. So much changed canonically in Season 5, and at least one of those changes (the arrival of Dawn) will be important going forward in this story. In my head, the poetry book is sort of like the Forrest Gump of the season: never center-stage, but always there.
> 
> Also, I know Dawn is a controversial character, but I happen to adore her. She had the good taste to befriend Spike when no one else would.


	8. Moving On

July 2001

_Something was going on at the top of the tower.  Spike peered up at the gigantic structure, his keen eyes making out the slender frame of the youngest Summers girl.  He couldn't see her face, but her body was stiff and frightened.  A small, elderly man with unblinking eyes was advancing on her with a knife.  Spike bit back a feral growl as he recognized him.  Doc._

_Buffy would never get to them in time.  She was too busy fighting Glory to notice what the hellgod's minion was doing.  It would be up to Spike to keep Dawn's blood safely in her body.  Luckily, they had two powerful witches on their side.  Red cleared a path for him and Spike darted up the stairs, using every last ounce of his preternatural speed._

_He got there just in time.  Doc's knife was mere inches from Dawn's throat, but he hadn't broken skin yet.  He turned as he heard Spike's approach.  The vampire didn't waste time with small talk.  He pounced on the lizard demon, fists flying._

_"Close your eyes, Bit!" he yelled.  No need for her to see this._

_As soon as Dawn's eyes were squeezed shut, Spike stopped punching the demon and grabbed his head.  With one brutal twist, he ripped it off.  He kicked the body off the tower in one direction and then threw the head in the opposite direction to ensure that this time Doc stayed dead._

_He grabbed Dawn and she let out a high-pitched scream._

_"S'okay, Bit, it's just me," he whispered, and she calmed down.  She opened her eyes and he held her.  "It's all over."_

_And it was.  Over her shoulder, he could see the whole battle.  Buffy was standing in victory over the prostrate form of Ben.  Was prob'ly gonna spare the stupid git.  But even that would be okay for now.  Glory's window of time had passed and she wouldn't be able to use Dawn to become all-powerful again.  His girls were safe.  Both of them._

_So why did something inside him ache so much?_  

Spike opened his bleary eyes and saw the ceiling of the Summers living room above him.  As he slowly took in his surroundings, the reason for the ache came crashing down on him.  It was just a dream.  He hadn't really saved Dawn or Buffy.  Doc had gotten to his Niblet and Buffy had taken a swan dive off the tower, sacrificing her own life for her sister's.

He sat up on the sofa, trying to shake off the grogginess.  The curtains were still tightly shut against the afternoon sun, but his senses told him it was already getting late.  He hadn't meant to crash while Dawn was at her friend's house, but the exhaustion of the past several weeks had finally caught up with him.  He shrugged off one of Joyce's spare quilts.  Li'l Bit must've come home and draped it over him as he slept. 

Where was that girl?

"Niblet?" he called out.  

There was no answer.

"Dawn?"

Still nothing.

Spike fought the urge to panic.  Had she returned only to leave again?  He doubted it.  Dawn didn't go out much anymore.  He had practically had to force her to attend her friend's swim party.  That Janice bird might be brainless as Harmony, but he knew Dawn needed to be spending more time with her friends.  She had enough gloom and doom in her life without wasting her whole summer hanging around his sorry corpse. 

Still, the blanket was evidence that she _had_ come home early.  He focused for a moment, listening for the sound of a human heartbeat in the house.  

There it was, a quick little pitter-patter coming from upstairs.  It was slightly faster than it should be.  She must be upset.  Her crying jags were getting progressively fewer as the weeks went by, but she still broke down every two days or so.  Poor chit had seen altogether too much loss for a single year.

He tiptoed up the stairs, following the sound of her heart beat.  She wasn't in her own room _._ She must be in _there._

That wasn't good.  Spike stood at the top of the stairs, dread churning in his empty stomach as he stared at the door to Buffy's bedroom.  He had been inside it frequently last year, sniffing at Buffy's things and stealing some of them for his collection.  But he hadn't been inside her room once since his reinvitation.  Her death had followed too quickly on the heels, and it hadn't seemed sufficiently respectful to invade her private domain afterward.

Spike turned the door handle hesitantly and poked his head in.

"Bit?"

Dawn was sitting on the bed, writing in her diary.  She looked up at the sound of his voice and he could see that her eyes were red-rimmed.

"Rough patch?"

Dawn nodded.  Tears threatened the corners of her eyes again, but she held them back.  Spike took a small step into the room.  She scooted over and patted the spot next to her on the bed.  He made his way slowly across the room, trying not to feel like he was desecrating some sort of sacred space with his very presence.  

"Something came for Buffy in the mail today," Dawn gulped as he sat down and put his arm around her.  She gestured over to the dresser, where he could see a wide envelope. "It was from the college.  Something about registration."  

"Thought the Slayer had quit her classes?"

"She did.  But she said she still wanted to go back when things calmed down.  They must have kept her on their mailing list."  

Dawn's eyes dropped down to the diary she was holding.  "I hate this," she whispered.  "I hate everyone pretending like she's still alive when she's not.  I hate that Dad doesn't know, that he still calls for her.  I hate that she still gets mail.  I hate the BuffyBot."

"I know, Bit." 

Spike hated the Bot even more than she did. Still, he deserved to look at the bloody thing every single day.  He was responsible for its existence.  Dawn, on the other hand...

After a moment's silence, she spoke again.  "You know what I hate the most, though?

"What's that?"

"I-I hate that I don't really hate it all.  I hate how nice it feels.  It's like Buffy's gone on vacation and she's gonna be back any day now.  Except she isn't, is she?  She's not ever gonna come back."

He stroked at her hair, pulling it away from her face.  "'Fraid not, Bit."  

She lay her head on his shoulder.  Spike wondered briefly what his old family would say if they could see him like this, comforting a teenage girl over the death of a Slayer. Probably nothing good, but he no longer cared.  Buffy's absence was like a painful hole in his chest.  Taking care of Dawn was pretty much the only thing keeping him from a mid-morning stroll.

"I miss her," she whispered.  "I miss everything about her.  Even the annoying stuff.   I miss her yelling at me.  I miss her whining to Mom about having to take me places.  I miss her getting upset about the milk."

"Preachin' to the choir, here, Bit," Spike said wryly.  "Don't think there ever was a time when the Slayer was happy to see me.   But I reckon I'd let her play Kick the Spike all the live-long day if it meant she was alive to do it."

Dawn gave a small snort and the corners of her lips twitched slightly.  It wasn't quite a smile, but it gave Spike hope that the teenager was resilient enough to get through this.

"You tell Verity all this?" he asked gently.  Dawn had never shown him anything in her diary, but she had told him about renaming it last year.  At the time, he had teased her mercilessly about the whole thing, but he was glad she had kept the journal.  Writing was good medicine for a troubled heart.  Heaven knew he needed it at times.

Dawn sighed.  "I've been trying."  She picked up her pen, then sat it down again, shaking her fingers.  "But I can only write for so long.  My hand keeps cramping up."

Spike withdrew his arm, shifting positions to search through the inner pockets of his coat.  He pulled out an elegant fountain pen and handed it to her.

"Here, try this.  You don't have to press as hard."

Dawn took the pen, eyeing it curiously.  Hesitantly, she scratched a few words onto the page, but the ink would not come.  Spike took the pen back.

"You have to hold it like this," he said, holding the gold nib up for her to see.  "Like so."  

He turned Verity to a clean page and wrote Dawn's name at the top of it in a beautifully angled hand.  She took the pen back and copied his movements.  The sepia-colored ink came more easily than before but Dawn wrinkled her nose at her own wobbly lines.

"I wish I had your handwriting," she sighed mournfully.

It was Spike's turn to snort.  "Yeah, I don't see why the schools this side of the bleeding pond can't teach brats how to form their letters.  Your sister's scrabble was even worse."

Dawn elbowed him in the ribs.  "You complained about Giles' handwriting and he's English," she pointed out.

"Oh, the Watcher's hand is proper enough.  Just too small."

Dawn crossed her arms and pouted.  The pose reminded him so much of her sister that Spike broke out in a pained smile.

"Wouldn't want you to have to learn the way I did, Bit," he told her.  

He took the pen back once more and wrote her name on the page again, this time using his right hand.  She watched in fascination.  It took about him about twice as long, but when he was done the letters looked nearly identical to his first effort.  He could see the question in her eyes.

"Wasn't supposed to use my left hand in school," he said.  "Not the done thing.  Got pretty good at using my right when I was being watched and switching to my left when I was alone."  He didn't mention that learning to write with his right hand had also come with bedwetting, a childhood stutter, and the liberal application of a cane.  

"Why didn't they want you using your left?"

Spike shrugged.  "Folks thought it was wrong.  The left hand was supposed to be evil.  People who wrote with it had to be off somehow."  He paused a beat.  "Guess they were right.  Evil vamp, after all."  He gave her another wry smile.

Dawn shook her head.  "I don't think you're evil."

Spike rolled his eyes to high heaven.

"Right," he said sarcastically.  "I'm just a big, fluffy puppy with bad teeth."  Mercy, when had he turned into sodding _Peaches_?

But Dawn's titter caught his attention.  

"Yeah," she snickered.  "You're like one of those yappy little Chihuahuas.  All bark, no bite."

"Oi!  Take that back!"

She looked at him with wide innocent eyes.  "Toothy Rottweiler puppy?" she tried again.  

He growled at her playfully, lowering his fangs slightly for dramatic effect.  She rewarded him with another titter.

"Dozy bint," he complained.  "Why can't you at least _pretend_ to be properly scared?"

"Because, _stupid,_  it's like I told you before-- _I'm_ badder than you."

"Are not!"

"Am too!"

Her titter turned into a full-on giggle, warming something inside him.  "Missed that," he told her quietly.

Her smile faded and Spike kicked himself mentally.

"Hey now, none of that, Niblet.  'S'alright to laugh.  She'd want you to."

"I know," she whispered.  "It's what she told me.  She-she told me the hardest thing in the world was to live in it.  She said to do it for her."

"She knew what she was talking about, Bit.  Your sis took the hits and kept on going.  Didn't let the weight of it all drag her down.  Not even having to stick a sword through her berk of a boyfriend."

Dawn looked at him strangely.  "You know," she mused, "I'm not so sure she ever really did move on from that."

Something inside of Spike began to hurt.  He shouldn't have brought up Angel.  He didn't really want to talk about him.

"Walked away from him in LA a couple of times, didn't she?" he asked.  "Got herself a brand new hulking milquetoast bully to break her heart for her."

"Yeah, but you should have seen the way she was about that stupid book Angel gave her.  She kept reading it all the time, even when she was dating Riley."

"That poetry book you mentioned awhile back?"

Dawn nodded.  "It's probably still in here somewhere."  She got up off the bed and started rummaging around Buffy's vanity.  A few moments later, she pulled a slim volume triumphantly from one of the drawers.

Spike's world stood still.

It couldn't be.  It just couldn't.  But there it was, plain as day.   _Sonnets from the Portuguese._ How on earth...

He blinked, recovering himself.  Dawn was looking at him with a question in her eyes, and he didn't think he could deal with prying right now.  Instead, he swallowed hard and reached out his hand for the book, hoping the teenager wouldn't notice the tremor going though him.

Dawn handed him the book.  

He held it closed in his hands for a moment, tracing the letters reverently and fingering the familiar binding.  He knew he had left it at the mansion.  He had been in such a rush to get Drusilla away from the fight and out of Sunnydale that he hadn't stopped to do more than throw a few essentials in the boot of his DeSoto.  The two of them had been almost to the border before he had realized that their favorite book had been left behind.  Spike had decided that going back for it wasn't worth risking the loss of Drusilla all over again.

"Look at what he wrote on the title page," Dawn told him.  Spike flipped the book open and immediately recognized his grandsire's hand.  

_Always._

"Bollocks," he whispered, feeling the bile rise in the back of his throat.  He sank back onto the bed, still holding the book.

Unbelievable prick.  Did he hold absolutely _nothing_ sacred?  It wasn't bad enough that he'd taken one woman away from him with the book they had shared?  He had to go and use it to sink his poisonous claws into another girl's heart?

Hot rage boiled inside Spike.  His demon was howling for revenge.  Angel was going to pay for this.  He would never destroy another girl again, never even look at one.  Spike could do it.  He hadn't before, even over the Gem, but _this_...this was different.  Spike would make sure he felt it.  He would hunt the pillock down and...and...

"Spike?"

Dawn's voice brought him back to reality.  Her blue eyes had gone even larger than normal and her face was pinched up with concern.  What had he been thinking?  He couldn't go off on some crusade of revenge, no matter how much the wanker deserved it.  He had to stay here, for his girl.  Dawn needed him.

He blinked, trying to force himself into some semblance of good humor.

"That bad, huh?"

"What?"

Dawn gestured at his face.  Spike suddenly realized that he had accidentally vamped out in front of her.  The teenager was shifting her weight back and forth, looking at him uncertainly.  She seemed a bit nervous, but not too scared.

"Oh," he said as casually as possible.  "Sorry, Bit.  Just got my hackles up.  Your sis deserved better than this tripe."

"I know, right?" Dawn gave a dismissive laugh.  "But Buffy just mooned over every single word he wrote her!"

"Well, in fairness, he didn't write much," Spike snorted.  

He thought about all the poems he had written the past year, secreted in the back of his crypt.  He wouldn't want a single one ever to reach Scooby eyes, but even _they_ were more thoughtful than Angel's message.  At least he'd _tried._   

"Not even a proper note.  Typical.  Poor little Liz Barrett writes her honey forty-four whole sonnets, and Angel just slaps a one-word message in front of them and calls it good."

"Oh, he wrote more than that," Dawn told him with an eye roll.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, I got too mad to read the rest of it, but apparently he's written other things in the margins.  I've seen the scribbles whenever she had it open."

Damn.  

For a moment, he had forgotten that Niblet had no way of knowing the book's history. Of course she would assume that all the handwritten comments inside it were from Angel. Buffy probably had as well.

A new ache began to form next to the place inside his chest where he could still feel Buffy's loss.  His grandsire had wooed his dear Slayer with Spike's own words.  He flipped through the book carefully, keeping the pages away from Dawn's prying eyes.  They were all there, the little ditties he had written over the years.  They were the reflections of quiet moments when he'd been overwhelmed with gratitude for the ripe wicked plum who had seen something in him worthy of her attention.  That gratitude that had apparently been premature.

Spike tried to imagine his golden-haired Slayer reading this book every night, thinking Angel had written in it.  He wondered how she interpreted all the little hints that pointed to the real recipient.  All but one of the poems had been intended for Drusilla.

"She deserved a _lot_ better," he repeated.  

Buffy had been nothing like Drusilla.  Dru had been all mystery and enchantment.  Buffy had been a warrior, hard and righteous.  She was high noon to Drusilla's midnight and she deserved words that fit her.  Words that captured the things that made her unique, that made her _Buffy._

The bile in his throat nearly choked him.  Maybe Dawn was right.  Maybe he really wasn't evil after all.  Because while Spike would happily slaughter whole villages and exult in the bloodshed, he honestly couldn't picture doing something like _this_ to someone he claimed to care about.  Bloody prick had managed to hurt two different women with the same sodding book.  And he'd taken something good and beautiful and turned it into something ugly and destructive.  That took a whole different level of monster.

He heard a throat clear.  Dawn was looking at him curiously.  He shook himself back into the present.

"Wanker never did know how to treat a girl right."

She gave him a watery smile.  "Yeah, I mean he left her what, like, five whole minutes after he gave her that?"

"Always was the love 'em and leave 'em type, Li'l Bit.  His sire said that's the way he was even when he was human."

"Darla?"

Spike nodded.  

"That's why she chose him.  Darla _liked_ that sort of thing."  

Dawn grimaced.

"Is that why he didn't stick around after the funeral?  Why he just got on a plane and left the country?"

"Nah, I imagine he's gone off somewhere to mope about and contemplate the trueness of his love or whatnot.  S'what he does.  We're prob'ly well rid of him, thank goodness."  

Angel could run off to some forgotten corner of the world and chant all the oh’s he wanted.  He could bloody well find himself and return to LA a Jedi knight if that's what tickled him.  So long as he stayed away from Sunnydale and Spike's Niblet.  The last thing he needed was to sink his fangs into another underage girl.

"Well, I still say he's a big jerkface," Dawn sniffed.  Spike smiled down at her affectionately and rumpled her hair.

"That he is, pigeon."  

He stood up, closing the book firmly and setting it on the vanity.

"S'no good dwelling on what's been done, Bit," he said, reminding himself as much as her.  "Buffy's gone, and no one can hurt her anymore.   _We're_ the ones who have to figure out how to keep moving on."

Dawn nodded.  She stood up as well offered him his pen back.  He shook his head.

"Keep it.  Need to keep up your writing."  

Her eyes brightened.

"Mind you take care of it now.  Gotta keep it upright and make sure you don't drop it on the nib."

"I will.  I promise!" 

She said it a little too quickly.  He narrowed his eyes.

"I mean it, Bit.  That's not a bloody ballpoint," he said gruffly.  "Got that thing back when ol' Rupert was still fouling up his nappies."

"Ewww!"  Dawn wrinkled her nose.  "That was a mental image I _so_ did not need."

Spike smirked.  

"You hungry?" he asked, switching gears.  "Think the witches left some boxed spaghetti on the stove."

Red and Glinda were at the Magic Box again, tinkering with that damn Bot.  He was gonna have to say something to Red soon.  They couldn't keep up this charade forever and having the Bot around wasn't gonna help Dawn put any of this behind her.

Dawn hesitated, so Spike pushed harder.  "I could get it started and you could add all that nasty stuff you like to it," he offered.  Dawn's culinary tastes made blood-and-Wheetabix look normal.

"Okay, just give me a few minutes.  I need to write a couple more things."  Spike nodded and left the bedroom, glad to leave behind the dark emotions that had risen at the sight of his old book.  

 _Don't look back,_ he told himself.  He headed downstairs, resolved to take proper care of the one person he had left.

 

**********

 

Dawn watched Spike's bleached hair disappear slowly down the steps.  She tiptoed to the door and shut it quietly.  Then she went back to the vanity and picked up the poetry book.

Something was wrong.  She had seen the spark of recognition in his eyes when she had produced the book.  He had tried to hide it from her, but for an evil vampire, he really was terrible at hiding his emotions.  And he had been far, far too quiet during their conversation.

She flipped the book open again, this time ignoring the title page.  As she turned the leaves, her heart started to pound.  The handwriting was familiar.  But it wasn't Angel's.  

Dawn had seen it before, many times.  It was the same hand that had taken down messages when Willow and Tara weren't home and Dawn didn't feel like answering the phone.  The hand that had made grocery lists and left them where the witches were sure to see.  The hand that had proofed her summer writing assignments, and kept score during every card game.

Numbly, Dawn reached for Verity.  She set the journal on the vanity and opened it to the page where Spike had written her name.  She set the poetry book beside it, flipping from poem in confirmation.

Yes, it was the same hand.  

Same ink, too, in at least one case.  The inks ran the gamut from red to blue-black, but there was at least one poem written in the exact same shade as Dawn's name.  It was a brownish tint--the sort of color that wasn't exactly common in a disposable pen.

Dawn sat down on the vanity stool and looked her reflection absently.  She could hear water running and pots banging downstairs in the kitchen.  

It all made sense, really.  She'd seen the poetry collection in Spike's crypt.  She remembered the half-crushed box of chocolates he had held protectively under his arm when she'd caught him "standing about" the front yard last year.  And their movie nights this past summer!  He always bitched and complained about watching something sappy like _Titanic_ , but then he'd get really into the story and provide a running commentary on the whole thing.

Yeah, Spike was a romantic for sure.  

And Angel wasn't.

How had Buffy missed the signs?  Dawn could understand her not recognizing Spike's handwriting.  Mortal enemies didn't stop to analyze each other's notes, and Buffy had never really let Spike get close enough after he was chipped.  But surely she would know Angel's well enough to see that the poems were not written by him?

Then again, her relationship with the first vampire hadn't exactly about love notes and sweet nothings whispered in the ear.  It had been all Romeo and Juliet with the tragedy and the broken hearts and the quick trips down to hell.  They hadn't really _known_ each other.

The sound of clanging pots downstairs became more urgent.

"You coming, Bit?" she heard Spike call out.

"Just a second," she yelled back.

Dawn slammed the poetry book shut and picked up her own journal in a huff.  She put the cap back on the fountain pen and left Buffy's room.  

Poor Buffy.  Poor Spike.  Dawn even felt sorry for his skanky ex, Drizella, or whatever her name was.  She returned to her room and dropped Verity and the pen on her bed before heading downstairs, muttering to herself about how "jerkface" was really too generous a nickname for Angel.


	9. Gifted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delayed update. I meant to get this up earlier today, but real life got in the way.

January 2002

The little band of trapped humans and demons breathed a collective sigh of relief as the front door of Revello Drive opened to let in the cool night air.  Halfrek vanished without a trace as soon as the curse was lifted, followed swiftly by Buffy's uptight friend from work.  Clem left apologetically, eyeing the neighbor's cat in a way none of the humans wanted to think about.  Willow retreated to her room, exhausted by the emotional upheaval of the past two nights.  Buffy busied herself in the kitchen, cleaning up forty-eight hours' worth of dirty dishes and not saying much.  Tara helped Xander and Anya as they carried the unfortunate Richard out of the house and placed him gently in Xander's car. 

Dawn had the funny feeling that whatever hopes the Scoobies had entertained about setting him up with her sister had been pretty much shot to pieces of the course of the previous two nights. Nothing like being trapped with a bunch of strangers--one of which had a skin condition that defied medical explanation--to turn a guy off.  Dawn might have worried that her sister would be disappointed by the loss of yet another "normal" guy, but she honestly hadn't seemed that interested in this one.  If anything, she had seemed more amused that Spike had been so jealous of him.

Spike was the last to leave.  Dawn stood at the front door and handed him his leather jacket, her stomach clenching as it reminded her of the stolen one that was still sitting in its box on the sofa.

"You mad at me?" she asked him timidly.

"'Bout what, Bit?  Can't rightly blame you for nicking baubles.  It's how I come by most of my things."

"Not about the stealing," Dawn bit her lip.  "About the..."  She gestured helplessly at the house around her.

"Didn't do it on purpose, now did you?"

Dawn shook her head vigorously.

"No need for apologies, then."   He flicked a stray strand of hair out of her eyes.  "S'pose we all deserved it, anyhow.  Shouldn't have to have us trapped in here to spend time with folks what care about you."

Dawn winced, knowing that he was being too generous.  Leave it to Spike to shoulder the blame for people he loved.   _Of course_ , she thought ruefully, _he's also the only one who doesn't care about the stealing._   Spike always took whatever he wanted and only ever paid with bruises.  She glanced up at the one that was currently covering his eye.

"That's taking a pretty long time to heal," she said, reaching out to touch it gently.

"Fyarls are built for bar fights," he told her.  For a moment, he seemed to recover some of his usual swagger.  "Got the best of them in the end, though, don't you worry."  

He grinned at her, but the smile didn't quite reach his eyes.  There was something he still wasn't telling her, but Dawn couldn't press him on it because Buffy chose that moment to reemerge from the kitchen.

"Thought you had left already," she commented curtly.

"Just saying goodnight to Niblet here."

"Well, don't take all night.  Dawn has school in the morning."  She spun on her heels with a flippant air and marched up the stairs to her bedroom.

The vampire raised his eyebrow at the haughty dismissal, but for once he didn't protest.  His attention was on the book that Buffy was clutching under her arm as she disappeared up the stairs.  Normally it never left her room, but in the lethargy of the past few days it had started following her around the house.  Dawn had seen the muscles in Spike's jaw move whenever he spotted her with it, but so far he hadn't said anything.

As the sound of Buffy's bedroom door closing, the vampire's attention returned to the girl in front of him.  Dawn fixed him with a level gaze.  They had never discussed the book again after that afternoon in July, but now something like understanding passed between the two friends.  He saw that she knew the truth and she saw that he knew she knew.

She cleared her throat.  "Do you want me to...?" She nodded towards the stairs and he followed her gaze. 

Spike hesitated.  Dawn watched a barrage of emotions play across his face--pain, longing, despair, and even amber-flecked anger.  He closed his eyes, then slowly shook his head.

"No.  Not the right time," he sighed heavily.  "Might not ever be."

Dawn nodded, biting back her disappointment.  If it were up to her, Buffy would have been told the truth as soon as she had come back.  But it wasn't Dawn's secret to tell.

"Want me to come by tomorrow?"

She looked at him hopefully.  It had been awhile since he had come by just to hang out with her.  "That-that would be nice.  I have a history test on Thursday.  First World War."

"Right then.  We’'ll go over your notes and then you can put on one of those drippy movies you like so much."

Dawn smiled as he disappeared down the drive.  Then she shut the door, trying not to feel like she was locking herself back into the very cage the others were escaping. She turned and faced the stairs, taking a deep breath as she headed up to the second floor.

 

**********

 

Buffy knew it was probably a bit dangerous for a Slayer to leave her window open when so many of Sunnydale's resident monsters knew where she lived, but the night air felt so cool and inviting.  Like her friends, she needed some sort of release from the claustrophobic atmosphere that had pervaded Revello Drive since her birthday party was first supposed to end.  The past two nights would have been an emotional roller coaster even if they hadn't ended with the revelation that her sister had turned into a kleptomaniac.

She gave a ragged sigh.  It wasn't fair.  Buffy had just turned twenty-one.  If she had to deal with any parental problems at her age, they should be new-parent things like changing diapers and preventing colic, not the emotional troubles of a teenager.  She didn't get why Dawn was acting so immature.  It wasn't as if _her_ school years had been taken up with fights to the death the way Buffy's had been.  

When had Dawn ever had to stick a sword through her own lover?  When had Dawn ever had to balance doing her homework against going out to fight evil?  When Mom died, Dawn wasn't the one stuck with parental responsibilities that were way over her head.  And Dawn wasn't the one who had had heaven ripped away from her so she could be forced right back into a life of violence.  What right did her sister have to act up?

Buffy curled up on her bed with her poetry book, trying to lose herself in a world other than her own.  She opened it to the title page, tracing the familiar word.  She had received this book exactly three years ago, but it felt more like a lifetime.  With some bitterness, she reflected that in a way it was.  The girl who had received this book had died last spring.  Had all of her come back?  Or was she something different altogether?  Was this what it felt like to become a vampire?

Unbidden, Spike's face popped into her head.  They had been dancing delicately around one another the past two nights, keeping their conversations lighthearted and teasing. It was a relief after her explosion last week.  The vampire had mercifully only brought up what had happened at the police station once.  And he'd kept his tone light, as if it didn't really matter that she had beat the living daylights out of him.  As if he couldn't still feel the bruises she could still see.

She told herself that he deserved it.  He had been trying to stop her from doing the right thing.  Except it had turned out that she hadn't actually committed the crime she had thought.  And that wasn't fair either.  When Faith had let loose, she had turned herself over to the cops.  But even behind bars, she was freer than Buffy had ever been.  When Buffy had thought that she had murdered Katrina, she had been torn between horror about what she had done and relief that she finally had a justifiable reason to take herself out of the picture.  Then Spike had stepped in, pushed himself right up in her face, and tried to prevent it.

But he had also given her an evil she could hit.  Something tangible, unlike the self-loathing that had been building up inside her.  So she hit him instead of the knot in her stomach.  She hit him for letting her flirt with his darkness.  She hit him for not understanding why Katrina's death was so important.  She hit him for standing between her and judgment.  She hit him for being the reasonable one, the calm one, the one who wanted to talk it through.  She hit him because he was the only one who could make her feel anything.  She hit him because he loved her.   _Really_ loved her.  And he shouldn't.  Soulless things _couldn't_.  So she hit him because he was bad. Because she was bad.

Like Faith.  

Buffy closed her eyes for a moment, remembering when her sister-Slayer had first rolled into town.  She hadn't murdered anyone yet, but Faith had already shown signs of unchecked rage.  Buffy could remember her pounding away at a vampire, beating it within an inch of its unlife.  She shuddered.  That had just been some random vamp, not one she knew personally.  Not one that still insisted on showing up--lack of invitation notwithstanding--at her birthday party, barely a week after enduring her fists.  What did that mean?  Buffy couldn't shake the feeling that it might mean that she had the potential to be much, much worse than Faith had ever been.

She shied away at the thought.  It wasn't good to dwell on those sorts of things.  It wasn't what Giles would expect from her.  Or her mother.  Or Angel.  She couldn't let them down.

With a resigned sigh, Buffy turned her attention back to the book.  She didn't need to read the words anymore.  After three years of reading it every single night, she pretty much knew the whole thing by heart, both Browning's words and Angel's.  But there was still something comforting about fingering the pages, relics from a point in her life when she felt sure of her own convictions.  She liked the feel of the paper between her fingers.  She liked the way it smelled.  

 _Crap,_ she thought.   _I'm turning into Giles._   The thought brought another ache to her chest.  She missed her Watcher.

There was a soft knock at the door, and Dawn stuck her head through the crack.  "Can I come in?" she asked quietly.

Buffy tensed, but nodded reluctantly.  She didn't really want to deal with her sister's problems right now.  She had enough of her own.  But she didn't really have an excuse to get out of this conversation.  She was supposed to be playing Mom, right?  She should have been scolding Dawn already instead of escaping to her own bedroom.

Dawn slipped into the room nervously, eyeing her sister as if she were about to explode.   The two girls stared at one another for several awkward minutes.   Finally, Buffy spoke.

"Why?"

Her sister bit her lower lip, then hesitantly perched herself on the edge of the bed.

"I don't know," she said softly.  "I-I suppose at first it was because I missed Mom.  And I guess...I guess I just wanted to see if someone would notice.  To see if anyone cared..."

"So what? You just thought you would punish me for not spending enough time with you?"

"What?  No!"  Dawn's face pinched up, tears threatening at the corners of her eyes.  "I just thought...I mean..."  She seemed to be struggling for the words, but something inside Buffy burst and suddenly she found herself yelling.

"Do you know _why_ I can't spend more time with you, Dawnie?  Do you know what it's _like_ flipping burgers the whole damn day, and then having to go out and kill all the things in this town that want to kill everyone you love?  You think I've got the energy to go over your algebra homework too?"

"I'm sorry," Dawn whispered.

"Right.  You're sorry," Buffy responded sarcastically.  "Willow's sorry.  Xander's sorry.  Everyone's sorry.  Well, _I'm_ sorry but it doesn't change a damn thing!"

Dawn just looked at the floor.  "I know."

Buffy watched her sister struggle to hold back her tears.  Against her will, some of her anger dissipated.  She moved closer and put a hand on Dawn's shoulder.

"Look, Dawnie," she said in a softer tone.  "I'm not Mom.  I don't have one job that pays all the bills.  I have two, and one of them doesn't pay anything.  I'm doing all I can just to keep us in food and clothes."

"I know that," Dawn said quickly.

"Do you?  'Cause honestly?  It feels like you're just trying to make things even harder for me."

"I'm not!  I swear!"

"Do you even know how difficult it is for me, just being here right now?

"No," she answered quietly.  "How could I?  You never talk about it."

That brought Buffy up short.  It was true.  The only person she had ever really talked about heaven with was Spike.  And wasn't that ironic?  Talking about eternal bliss with an evil vampire?  It was just more proof that she had come back wrong.

"You wouldn't understand."

"Probably not.  But could you at least let me try?"

Buffy swallowed hard.  "I was happy," she whispered, studying her fingernails as it they held the answers to all life's problems.  "I was finished.  I could _rest_.  The fight was over.  And then it wasn't."

She paused.  "I'm not sure I even know who I am anymore.  And I'm afraid to find out.  Do you know what that's like?"

Dawn put her hand tentatively on her arm.  "I think I do."

Buffy's lips parted in surprise as she looked at her little sister.

"It's how I felt last year.  After I found out, I mean."  Dawn paused hesitantly.  "It may not have been heaven, but what the monks gave me...felt nice.  It was a good childhood, all things considered.  And then it was gone, and suddenly I didn't know who I was.  And everyone kept getting hurt because of me.  I-I thought I might be evil."

Dawn dropped her eyes down to the floor again.  "Sometimes I still think I might be," she confessed.  "When I started...you know...taking things...it was just about getting noticed.  But then...I don't know...it was sort of fun.  I got this rush, doing something that felt dangerous.  That felt wrong."

Buffy's eyes widened as she thought of the countless hours she had been spending in a crypt in Restfield.  She knew what rush Dawn was talking about.  It was the same feeling that had consumed her in an abandoned house, the addiction that kept her running to _him_.  The thrill of playing with fire.

"I really didn't mean to make life harder for you," Dawn continued.  "It wasn't really about you at all.  It's just...it's been sort of...lonely...around here.  I know you're busy, but I just needed something...that made the loneliness go away awhile."

"What about Janice?  You still hang out with her, right?"

Dawn snorted.  "Yeah.  Whenever I want to talk about movies or boys.  But what am I going to tell her about my real life?  That our whole friendship is based on a lie?  That a hell god tried to kill me last spring?  That my sister spent the summer in heaven and now she's back?"

The tears that had been threatening Dawn's eyes since the beginning of their conversation began to pour out.

"Willow and Tara are fighting.  Xander and Anya only ever talk about the stupid wedding.  Giles is gone.  Mom is gone.  You're not around.  The only one who ever really talked to me about the big stuff was Spike and he's..."  She gulped, unable to continue.

But she didn't need to.  Buffy knew Spike was not hanging out with Dawn as much because she frequently had him preoccupied.  Sometimes she forgot that the soulless vampire that gave her that hot, guilty rush of danger was also her little sister's best friend.  It was a weird thought, and not one she was comfortable with, but Spike _had_ proven trustworthy around Dawn.  Buffy really didn't want to think about why.

"I'm sorry," it was her turn to say.  There didn't seem to be much else she _could_ say.

Dawn gave a resigned shrug. "It's alright.  It's not your fault.  And anyway, Spike promised he'd be here tomorrow to help me with my homework."

Buffy bit her lip.  "Dawnie, I know you're feeling lonely, but I don't think you should be hanging out with Spike.  He's not--he's not _good._ "

Dawn rolled her eyes with a bit more of her usual attitude.  "Puh-lease.  You've been saying that for a year now.  He's never done anything to me."

"That's not the point."

"Then what is?"

 _I don't want my little sister to find out that I'm screwing around with a soulless monster_ , Buffy thought.  But she couldn't say that to Dawn.

"He's a bad influence," she tried instead.  "If he's already got you stealing things from the Magic Box--"

"Spike didn't have anything to do with that!" Dawn protested hotly. "He didn't even know!"

"Well, at any rate, you shouldn't be spending all your time with a vampire," Buffy responded, trying to sound calm and reasonable.

Her sister gave her another eye-roll, gesturing pointedly to the poetry book that was still sitting on Buffy's bed.

"That's different.  Angel's different."

"Yeah, I know.  He's boring and mopey and he never laughs."

"He is _not_ boring!" Buffy defended.  "Anyway, that's not what I meant."

"I know it's not," Dawn smirked, apparently feeling a bit more lighthearted.  "But it's the truth.  Angel wouldn't know how to have fun if he was dropped in the middle of Disneyland on a day with no lines and given a thousand dollars just to do whatever he wanted."

Buffy glared at the younger girl, torn between the desire to keep the conversation on the issue of souls and the need to defend her first love from her sister's accusations.  Of course, Dawn probably had a point about the Disneyland thing.  Buffy couldn't really envision Angel enjoying himself at an amusement park.  But there was no way she was going to admit that in an argument.

"You just didn't know him as well as I did," she said, ignoring Dawn's derisive snort.  "Angel has a whole other side to him that you never got to see."

"Oh, really?"

"Yes, really," Buffy insisted.  "He could be very romantic."  

Dawn scoffed.  

"He could!"

Buffy hesitated.  She had never actually shown anyone what Angel had written to anyone before.  It had always been too painful and personal.  But Dawn had opened up to her this evening, and it seemed right for Buffy to do the same.

"He-he wrote me poetry," she said shyly, opening the book to the page she had looking at earlier.   A strange look came into Dawn's eyes.  Her sister shifted her weight back and forth uncomfortably.  

"In that book of yours?" she asked finally, not quite meeting Buffy's eyes.  The blonde nodded, beckoning her sit on the bed again.  

"It's not all stuff from that Victorian lady," she said.  "He's written a lot in the margins.  Poems, mostly.  Look at this one."  She held the book up so Dawn could read the short poem written in brown ink.

 

_One strikes_

_The other sways_

_Through starry nights_

_And deadly days_

 

_Softly yin feints;_

_Boldly yang fights;_

_Sweetly she beckons,_

_And fondly he bites._

 

_Round and about_

_And round again--_

_The endless dance_

_Of yang and yin._

 

Dawn was quiet for a long moment.  

"It's...very nice," she admitted awkwardly.  Buffy took the comment for a near victory.

"Isn't it?" she said somewhat proudly.  'Well, I guess except for the biting part, but he wrote that before the whole graduation thing, so that's okay."

Buffy began flipping through the book, showing off the poems.  It felt good, finally being able to share her old love's talents.  It was a bit like reliving her years with him--that time long ago when she was still capable of inspiring a lover to produce something of beauty, instead of just cavorting with him in the bottom of a crypt.

Dawn was oddly silent for most of the show-and-tell, making only politely strained compliments when Buffy pressed her on her opinions.  She did lift an eyebrow when Buffy showed her _Playing Mirror._

"Did Angel ever actually do that with you?" she asked.

"No," Buffy admitted ruefully.  "We never got around to it."

Dawn took the book from her sister.  She flipped through the pages quietly.  Buffy watched her nervously.  From time to time, Dawn would open her mouth as if she were about to say something, but then changed her mind.  Finally, Buffy decided that she couldn't take the suspense.

"What is it?" she asked.

Dawn flipped to the title page, hesitating for a moment as if she were uncertain about something.  At last she looked up at Buffy.  "Why is his handwriting different on this page?"

Pain clenched at Buffy's stomach.  She had also wondered about that awhile, but she didn't really like admitting what she suspected.

"I-I think that's my fault," she confessed.  "I think the title page was written after...after hell."

Dawn's eyes widened.

"You think his handwriting changed after he came back?"

Buffy nodded guiltily.  "Back when I was taking Professor Walsh's class, she said that people who undergo severe trauma sometimes experience unexpected changes afterwards.  I-I think Angel's handwriting must have changed because...of what _I_ did to him."

Dawn's face hardened.  "You didn't do anything to him he didn't deserve.   _He_ was the one who tried to raise Acathla and get the whole world sucked down into hell.  It's his own stupid fault that he didn't read the fine print when he opened the portal."

Buffy looked down at the book.  "It's not that simple.  That wasn't him.  He didn't have his soul."

Dawn let out a long, frustrated sigh.

"I know you believe that, but I have a hard time buying it," she said.  "If he wasn't the same person with or without his soul, he wouldn't feel so guilty with it for the things he did without it."

"He feels guilty because he's a good person, Dawnie," Buffy insisted.  She stroked her book tenderly.  "His soul is so beautiful.  It's the reason he can write things like this, even if he can never bring himself to say them. I-I think he has a gift."

Dawn stared at her for a long time.  "If you insist," she said with a small smile.  She stood up.  "It's pretty late.  I need to get to bed.  I've got school in the morning."

Buffy glanced at her clock.  It was well past midnight.  

"You're probably right," she said.  She looked up at her sister.  "We'll take the jacket back tomorrow, yeah?"  It wasn't her sternest voice, but after their conversation it was the best she could muster.

Dawn nodded and padded toward the door.  But before she left the room, she paused and looked over her shoulder at her sister.

"The poems in your book are very pretty, Buffy," she said quietly.  Then, so softly that Buffy couldn't be sure she hadn't misheard her, she added, "but I'm not sure they were Angel's gift to give."

Then, before her sister could process the comment, Dawn disappeared into her own bedroom, leaving Buffy staring after her in tired confusion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies also for entering painful Season Six waters. If it helps, next chapter will be poetry-heavy! :D


	10. Shell Shock

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies, but I feel should warn everyone that this chapter may require chocolate ice cream.

August 2002

Buffy flitted through the headstones of Restfield Cemetery, humming lightly to herself.  It had been a good evening, all things considered.  She had managed to cook Dawn a proper meal--complete with vegetables!--without burning down the house.  The teenager had still complained about her cooking, but the way she had crammed down her lasagna told Buffy that her sister was secretly pleased to have something besides a Doublemeat burger for dinner.

Now Dawn was back home finishing up her summer reading while Buffy patrolled.  It felt almost normal for Sunnydale.  Almost, but not quite.  Because Willow wasn't there to keep Dawn company, and Tara would never walk through their door again.  Buffy wouldn't be reporting to Giles when she finished her patrol, and she couldn't step into the Magic Box without feeling awkward around Anya.  Somehow, the Scooby Gang had been reduced to just the Summers girls and Xander.

The Scoobies weren't the only ones missing from Sunnydale, though.   _He_ was gone as well.  Buffy tried not to think about him most of the time, but it was impossible during patrols.  This was when he used to pester her, popping out from time to time to steal her kill and then leer at her in that frustrating but flattering way of his.  And then, more often than not, they would somehow end up back at his crypt.

Buffy told herself she didn't miss him.  You weren't supposed to miss someone who tried to do _that_ to you.

But then she would be in the middle of slaying and think of a funny quip that would fly over her victim's head, and there would be no one there to give her an appreciative smirk while the dust settled.  No one there to talk to or complain about.  No one to lift a scarred eyebrow or tilt his head in that bird-like way whenever she said something surprising.  No one who could take a punch to the nose when her Slayer side got cranky.  No one who would forgive her for the same assault on his face.  No one who could be her whole left side in a fight.

No, she didn't miss him at all.

Except when she made her rounds at Restfield, she supposed.  After all, the vampire she definitely did _not_ miss had kept his old stomping grounds mostly free of his kind.  Buffy had only ever had to make casual sweeps for fledges and new arrivals who hadn't yet been warned that an Aurelian guarded the premises.  Now the underworld was threatening to take over the cemetery again.  

Several yards ahead, shadows were moving.  Her heart jumped to her throat.  There was someone outside his crypt.  She paused for a moment, reaching out with her Slayer senses, but she couldn't pick up his familiar signature.  These were strangers.

"Well, well, well!  What have we here?"  The pink-haired alpha female with the pixie cut moved toward her, forehead ridges rippling.  "Has Little Red Riding Hood lost her way?"

Buffy moved forward aggressively, unexpected anger rippling through her body.  "Get away from that crypt."

"Or what?  You'll call the police on us?" the leader mocked.  Her nest snickered, moving in for the kill.  Clearly, they were new in town and didn't recognize a Slayer when they saw one.

"You know," Buffy said casually, "you shouldn't just barge in on someone else's crypt and act like you own it."

"Oh, what?  Is it your granny buried here, sugar pea?"

Buffy lunged, not bothering to argue further.  Two minutes later, the grass around the crypt was layered with the dust of six different vampires.  The Slayer put her stake in her back pocket and looked around with satisfaction.  

He would have impressed.  

She tried not to think about why that mattered.  She also tried not to think about the conversation she had just had with the leader.  They were soulless vampires, bent on evil.  She had done her Slayer duty.  It absolutely, definitely, had _not_ been about protecting his pad from squatters.  Anyway, it wasn't even his pad.  He didn't have any more right to it than the newcomers.  It belonged to the family of whoever was buried here.

And he wasn't coming back, so it was all beside the point.

She stared at the door.  She hadn't been inside for months.  Not since Riley.  And if she were honest, she couldn't pretend that her avoidance of the place wasn't about him.  She really _should_ go in and check it out.  Other demons might be holed up in there, taking advantage of the convenient hiding place.

Her stomach did a weird sort of flip-flop as she pushed open the door.  It might have been the first time she had ever opened it without a slam.  She stepped into the cool interior.  There had definitely been looters since her last visit.  His television was missing, along with the armchair.  The door of his tiny fridge was ajar and the smell of long-expired blood made Buffy's nose wrinkle.  The sarcophagus looked untouched, however, and the candles were still sitting on the windowsill.  

Her feet made their reluctant way to the opening that led to the lower level.  He hadn't managed to replace his ladder before he left, so she would have to jump.  She peered into the blackness.  There was nothing moving down there, and her Slayer senses were quiet.  She probably could get away with not checking.  She could walk out of this crypt right now and not come back for several nights.

With a sigh, she lit one of the torches, sat along the edge, and slid down to the place that held so many memories.

It was worse than she remembered.  Then again, she hadn't really gotten a good look at it after destroying the eggs.  She had been too concerned about staying strong.  And away from him.  This was the first time she had really looked around since she had bombed the hell out of his home.

It was a fitting tribute to their relationship, right down to the scorch marks on the stone.  The gigantic bed that they had rarely ever made it to lay in pieces, its linens burnt away.  The nightstand next to it was also just a pile of crumbling rubble on the stone floor.  Buffy was surprised to see that parts of his beautiful carpet had survived, if only in blackened tatters.  She felt a pang of regret that seemed dangerously close to guilt.

 _He deserved it_ , she reminded herself sternly.  He had been dabbling in international crime.  Which seemed odd for him, but she supposed evil was evil.

Buffy gave a small sigh and ventured toward the back of crypt.  There was some sort of locker thing propped up against the back wall.  She frowned.  In all the times she had been down here, she had never bothered to ask about it.  She supposed it was where he had kept his seemingly endless supply of black shirts.  One of the doors had been forced open by the blast.  Whatever was inside had probably caught fire, but some of it might still be salvageable.

Not that she was salvaging anything of his.

She opened the door, and her stomach did another one of those weird little flips.  He'd been using the locker as a bookcase.  A spark must have gotten inside because most of the books were charred beyond readability, but the covers of the hardback volumes were still visible.  

Buffy picked up a cover, brushing it off to peer at the title.

 _Howl,_ it read.  Towards the bottom was a name.   _A-- Ginsb---_

She snorted.  Of course he would like the Beat Generation.  She reached for another cover.

_Emily Di--_

That surprised her a bit.  She remembered Dickinson from the UC Sunnydale course she had been forced to quit her sophomore year.  Buffy had actually liked her work.  But she supposed the strange little woman was morbid enough to appeal to a vampire as well, with all her talk about death and stuff.

She pulled out another title.

 _The Wastela--_ by _T-- Eli--_

Buffy frowned, beginning to notice a trend.  She began digging through the charrings, looking for slivers of titles she might recognize.  She pulled out a fragment of a hardback spine.

 _\--rdsworth_  

The weird little flips her stomach kept making turned into a full-throttle churn.  Her investigation became more panicked as she waded through the blackened remains.  Within a few minutes, she had found evidence of Homer, Blake, Frost, Tennyson and what looked suspiciously like Shakespeare.  

 _It doesn't mean anything_ , she told herself, breathing heavily.   _Lots of people like poetry.  It doesn't mean---_

What?  What didn't it mean?  Her search turned into a mad scramble.  The locker creaked in protest as she dug through the layers of half-charred paper.  Suddenly, the whole metal frame gave a loud shudder and came crashing down, filling the air with clouds of dust that choked her.  She shut her eyes and covered her mouth, waiting for the air to clear. 

When the dust had settled enough for her to look again, her eyes widened in surprise.  There was a small nook in the rock wall that had been hidden by the locker.  It held what looked like an assortment of papers, bound up in some sort of leather folder.  The Slayer in Buffy kicked into high gear.  These must be documents from his dealings as the Doctor.

She pulled the folder out, drifted over to what little remained of the bed's mattress, and sat down.  She stared at it for several minutes, unsure whether she really wanted to know about all his dirty dealings.  Then she remembered the struggle in the bathroom and her face hardened.  She wanted to see it all, to remind herself why he couldn't be trusted.  Why he shouldn't be missed.  Even if he did like Wordsworth.  Buffy opened the folder.

And the world turned upside down.

It couldn't be.

But there it was.

A poem, written in handwriting that she recognized instantly.  She knew it better than any other hand.  Better than she knew her own.  She knew every curve and the way the lines wove in and out of thickness.  The way one shade of ink melted into another.  The flourishes on his capitals.  The fifty-five degree angle.

She stared at it in horror, not wanting to acknowledge the truth.

The handwriting she knew from page after page of the Browning book...didn't belong to Angel.  

It belonged to  _Spike._

 

_**********_

 

How?  How was it possible?

Buffy closed her eyes, thinking back to the night she had received the book.  Spike and Drusilla had been long gone by then.  But Angel had still been living at the old Crawford mansion for a long time after he came back from hell. 

He...Buffy swallowed hard, willing herself to face the ugliness...he must have taken it from the things they had left behind when they skipped town.  And he had given it to her, knowing full well who it had belonged to previously.  

Something else clicked.  

Mystic gaze.  Raven hair.  Moon Kitty.  Bad Dog.  Too bloody right.

The poems in her book...the poems that had been her comfort and her sustenance through every single trial of the past few years...had never been intended for her at all.  They had been written for...Buffy swallowed again... _Drusilla._   Her head swam dizzily as she absorbed the double blow.  The nausea in her stomach reached a crescendo.  She barely remembered to set the folder aside before she leaned over to retch out her dinner onto the crypt floor.  

When she was done, Buffy hid her face in her hands.  She didn't know what was worse.  That Angel had lied to her?  That the poems she loved so much had been written for another woman?  Or was it...that they had been written by _him_?

Buffy's heart twisted.  That was it.  What hurt the most was that a soulless creature--one who had proven in her very own house just how evil and wrong he was--had written of his real-but-not-really-real love in such sweet terms.

He shouldn't have been able.  He wasn't supposed to create things of beauty.  Only creatures with souls could do that.  Buffy shuddered, feeling like her entire world had slipped away from her.

This changed everything.

Slowly, she sat back up and stared at the leather folder with a mixture of curiosity and dread.  She hadn't even processed the words on the page, so shocked had she been by the handwriting.  Now she found herself wondering what he had been writing secretly in the years since he had lost both book and girl.  With a trembling hand, she reached for it again and pulled out the top leaf.  She received another jolt when she saw her mother's name emblazoned at the top.

 

_Tribute to Joyce_

 

_What is the worth_

_Of a cup of tea,_

_Or cocoa with marshmallows_

_Stirred carefully?_

_Not the heat or the sugar_

_Or even caffeine--_

_Pleasant and sweet_

_As these trappings may seem._

 

_But the worth of the drink_

_Lies in the milk_

_Not dairy, but kindness_

_From open heart spilt._

_Served with a smile_

_That could make a man wilt,_

_With no airs or postures_

_For a vamp of my ilk._

 

_In what lies the beauty_

_Of a mother bear,_

_Who battles so boldly_

_The one who would dare_

_Attack the daughter_

_Of her fierce-loving care,_

_Fixing upon him_

_Her maternal glare?_

 

_The grace of the mother_

_Is shown in her girls_

_Who crown her strength_

_At that gate of pearls_

_By facing with spirit_

_The darts that life hurls_

_And braving the onslaught_

_Of hell's roughest churls._

 

_A woman of contrasts,_

_The Lady of Sunnydale_

_Whose stern-hearted mercy_

_Could violent hearts quell_

_Now called far beyond_

_This pale mortal veil_

_Like an angel reclaimed_

_From the mouth of hell._

 

It was dated April 2, 2001, the day after her mother's funeral.  Buffy closed her eyes, picturing Spike sitting on her kitchen counter, chatting with Joyce about her art gallery.  

Yeah, that seemed right.  Joyce had always gotten along better with the blond vampire than she had with Angel.  And Buffy had walked in a few times to find them sharing a cup of something warm.  It had never seemed to bother her mother that Spike was soulless and had tried to kill her daughter several times.

Buffy frowned, wondering how many times Spike had been over at her house.  She supposed it might have been fairly frequently while she was away at college, but she had only ever seen him there occasionally.  At the time, she had just assumed he was trying to be obnoxious.  It had never really occurred to her that Spike might actually _like_ her mother.  

She looked around the crypt.  It had taken him a long time to gather together all the furnishings she and Riley had blasted to smithereens.  There must have been a period when it was just empty, when he had just been living by himself in nothing but gloomy stone. A flash of discomfort hummed through her body. How lonely must he have been to think so highly of her mother for sharing a cup of cocoa with him?

Buffy shook herself.  It didn't matter.  Spike deserved to be lonely.  He wasn't nearly good enough to have ever been in her mother's kitchen in the first place.  She wondered somewhat vindictively what her mother would have said if she'd known what he had tried to do.  But then that queasy little hum of guilt returned.  What would Joyce have said if she'd known about the police station?

Troubled, Buffy returned the poem to the folder.  She briefly considered putting the whole thing back into the crevice it came from and never coming near the spot again.  But now that she knew, she found that she had to know more.

Had Spike written anything about her?

Buffy picked the folder back up and flipped through the motley assortment of papers.  As it turned out, he had written about her a _lot._   She held up another poem and read it.

 

_Hail Valkyrie,_

_Goddess of the fight!_

_Bright lovely sprite_

_And womanly knight,_

_All fearsome might_

_In figure slight,_

_Who lights the night_

_To fright and smite_

_The wicked wight_

_And put to flight_

_With warlike rite_

_Dark things that bite._

_Great glorious sight_

_Is my Valkyrie._

 

_Hail Valkyrie,_

_Evil's bane!_

_Who deigns to claim_

_Infernal terrain_

_For her own domain,_

_To maim and tame_

_With flawless aim_

_Swains who blame_

_And defy her reign_

_In rebellion vain,_

_Slaying the same_

_Wild children of Cain._

_Victor of the game_

_Is my Valkyrie._

 

_Hail Valkyrie,_

_Warrior of Day!_

_Come out to play_

_And join the fray,_

_Our gay melee!_

_Scourge and slay_

_Us fiends who stray_

_From narrow way--_

_Yet let me stay,_

_I pray, and weigh_

_Whether I may_

_In bloody ballet_

_Be thy worthy prey,_

_O fierce Valkyrie!_

 

Against her will, she smiled a bit.  That was Spike, alright.  The perfect mixture of weird reverence and abrasive challenge and seductive surrender.

Buffy remembered the night she had taken him to the Bronze and his words to her in the alley that had scared her so badly.  For the first time since he had gotten the chip, she had been forced to remember that he wasn't just a run-of-the-mill fledge.  He had killed two Slayers before her.  And something about the way he had threatened her from his knees had proven unsettling.  Then he had gotten right up in her face.  She closed her eyes, the scene playing on the inside of her lids.

_"Get out of my sight.  Now!"_

_"Oh, did I scare you?  You're the Slayer.  Do something about it.  Hit me.  Come on, one good swing.  You know you want to."_

_"I mean it."_

_"So do I.  Give it me good, Buffy."_  

And then he had started to kiss her.  She hadn't wanted to acknowledge it then, frightened as she had been by the tension that seemed to be coursing through them both. Instead, she had forcibly regained control of the situation.  She had shoved him to the ground and walked away with words meant to cut him to the quick, to put him back in his place.  What she hadn't expected was for him to show up hours later and start comforting her on the back porch.  

Nor had it been the last time he had done so.

Buffy flipped through the stash of poems.  It was like reading the entire story of the past two years through his eyes.  There were other poems about Joyce and a few about Dawn.  There were a couple of hate poems to Angel that Buffy would have found annoying before now, but couldn't quite bring herself to reject at the moment.  There were snarky poems and violent poems and sappy poems and poems about things from his life before Sunnydale.  There was an ode to fried onion flowers and another one about Wheetabix and yet another dedicated to _Passions_.  But the vast bulk of them were about her.

Her hand stopped when she came across a poem he had labeled  _Living Dead._

 

_Our eyes flutter open_

_And bleary vision clears_

_Stomachs turn at the sight_

_Of satin closing in,_

_Trappings of the death-box._

_Panic surges inside_

_Lungs so greedily gulp_

_The air they should ration._

_(Her fear, not mine.)_

 

_Fingers tear at fabric,_

_Ripping the soft veneer,_

_Exposing lonely truth:_

_No one will hear us call._

_We claw with urgent nails_

_Our gruesome wooden cage;_

_The shards new instinct knows_

_May prove the final end._

_(My fear, not hers.)_

 

_Upwards towards black night_

_Through layers of loose soil_

_Which draw new life from death,_

_Centipede and wild root,_

_We fight to live again--_

_The grave our earthen womb_

_Birthing its strange children_

_Into the world once more._

_(Our heads break free.)_

 

_I laugh in sheer delight,_

_My senses taking in_

_The scents of living things._

_I am quick, I am strong!_

_She stares with hollow eyes_

_At hunger, hurt, and toil,_

_And carries into life_

_The deadness of her grave._

_(My cheer, her ache.)_

 

_Dear Slayer, I would trade_

_My rapture for your grief_

_That you might smile again_

_And see the world afresh._

_Let me show, let me share_

_How pain with pleasure comes_

_And lends its grace to joy,_

_The precious sting of life._

_(Live well, my heart.)_

 

For a moment, Buffy felt her lungs closing again, recalling the feeling of claustrophobic panic at finding herself alive in her own grave.  It had been her oldest and strongest childhood fear.  Her Slayer strength and survival drive had been the only things keeping her calm for those torturous few minutes when she's been forced to tear apart her own coffin and push through six feet of top soil before breathing again.

Spike had known.  It had taken her friends disturbingly long to understand their mistake, but the vampire had understood immediately what she had been forced to go through to rejoin the world above.  And for a little while, that had been enough for her to accept their connection.  She had gone to him with her terrible secret, and had spent her evenings with him on her back porch or in his crypt, away from the clamor of a busy world.

At first, she wasn't sure why she kept going to him--whether she was hanging around a dead man because she wanted to escape back into her grave or because he seemed to hold the key to living again.  It was only when the song demon showed up that Buffy had realized that it was the latter she desired more.  

Ironic really, that the vampire who had spent so much time trying to kill her and goad her with his talk of death wishes had also been the one who had tried the hardest to prick her back to life.

He had warned her...life wasn't a song.  It wasn't bliss.  It was full of pain and heartache.  He had told her that she had to go on living, so at least one of them would be.  But that hadn't been quite right.  Because he had been the one who had really been alive at that point.   _She_ was the vampire in the poem.

Buffy re-read the last stanza, torn between pain and anger.  

He hadn't given her any rapture beyond the purely physical.  Where had been the smiles in their relationship?  Whatever casual gentleness he'd seemed capable of when she had first come back had disintegrated into the raging fire of their affair.  He hadn't shared anything BUT pain with her after that.  

And it had all ended with a desperate struggle on white tile.

Buffy slammed the folder shut, not wanting to read anymore.  But as she threw it aside, a tiny slip of paper fluttered to the ground.  She stared at it for a long moment, wanting once again to just leave it there and go home.  But it drew her like a moth to the flame.  She picked it up.

 

_Behold,_

_Locks lay in soft molten gold_

_Upon her shoulders bare_

_Gleaming like the stories told_

_Of Sif's effulgent hair._

 

_Dark stunt,_

_Shorn by loathsome Jotun runt--_

_Yet strand for silken strand,_

_Lips did pay for bold affront,_

_The sin of stealthy hand._

 

She frowned.  It was some sort of literary reference, but not one with which she was familiar.  The name Sif rang a vague bell.  She supposed it was something that had been mentioned briefly in her high school English class, but either she had slept through that day or it hadn't been treated as important.  

She almost set the poem down in disappointment, but the last stanza caught her attention.  It was longer than the first two, with a slight shift in style that turned it into an almost violent staccato.

 

_Snip, snip--_

_With the brash sin of my lip_

_Her gold falls to the floor._

_Snip, snip--_

_Falls the hot, avenging whip_

_That punishes her whore_

_Snip, snip--_

_For crass, desecrating slip_

_Of daring to adore._

 

The queasy feeling returned to her stomach.  He knew her too well.  Part of her wanted to protest.  It was _her_ hair!  She had a right to cut if she wanted.  But the fair part of her--the part that spoke in her mother's voice--told her that was beside the point.  Cutting her hair hadn't been about self-expression.  It had been about spite.  It had been about _him._

Buffy read the whole poem again.

_Whore._

That was what he had called himself.  The word made her flinch.  She wanted to deny it, but she had already admitted as much to Tara.  She had hated him and used him and hated him even more for letting her do it.

But whores didn't get to fight back.  They were passive.  They were victims.  Spike wasn't a victim.  He was evil.  He was aggressive.  He was the one who had followed her into the bathroom that night, the one who had pinned her to the floor.  

If he was her whore...then...then it must be because that's what he wanted.  He had just wanted her for sex.  She hadn't been using him.  They had been using each other.  Only it wasn't her fault because she had been depressed and it _was_ his fault because...because...

Buffy swore with every curse word she had ever learned from him, punching the stone wall next to her and feeling gratified by the resulting pain.  When she was done, she lay back and panted.  It occurred to her that if he had been in her position, Spike would have done exactly the same thing.  She gave a short, hysterical giggle, and looked around her.  The leather folder was still sitting quietly in front of her, damning her with its very existence.

Heavily, she bent down to pick it up again.  

 _I shouldn't do this to myself,_ she thought.

She put in on her knee.

 _I should stop now.  Just put it back and go on with my life._  

Her hand reached for the leather flap.   _It isn't worth it.  He isn't worth it._

She opened the folder--

 _It won't change anything._  

\--and shuffled through the pages.

 _He's gone now, and he's never coming back._  

She reached the very last page and looked at the date.  This had to have been the last poem he had written before that night.  The last thing penned before he left her behind in this hellhole.  Buffy stared at the title.   _Heat_ , it was called.  Her heart was pounding painfully.  Could she bear this?  Slowly, she let her eyes drift downward to the first lines.

 

_Give your lady_

_Passion's heat;_

_She does not want_

_Caresses sweet._

 

_Do not cuddle,_

_Do not coo,_

_But bruise her skin_

_Black and blue._

_Take her fury,_

_Take her rue--_

_What your Slayer_

_Wants from you._

 

_All heat, no sweet:_

_This is the only_

_Love you're due._

 

_Be the evil,_

_Be the foe._

_You're the villain_

_Of the show._

_Give her darkness,_

_Give her woe_

_Let her trade you_

_Blow for blow._

 

_All heat, no sweet:_

_This is the only_

_Love you'll know._

 

_Never cherish._

_Never kiss._

_Show no hint of_

_What you miss._

_Let her hurt you,_

_Let her hiss--_

_Not for monsters_

_Heaven's bliss._

 

_All heat, no sweet:_

_She'll never give you_

_More than this._

 

_So give the lady_

_Passion's heat;_

_She does not want you_

_Kind and sweet._

 

A roar that had been building in Buffy since she had first begun to read broke through the surface.  She let out a wild, savage, heartbroken cry that echoed through the crypt and shook the loose rubble of the floor above her dangerously.  If there had been any demons in the cemetery outside or in the sewers that connected to this level, they would have panicked and fled as the greatest Slayer on record screamed like banshee, banging the walls and floor with her tiny, powerful fists.

Finally, Buffy crumpled in exhaustion.  Burying her face in the supple leather of his folder, she sobbed out all the pain of the past year.  And the tears washed it clean, leaving her with an empty peace.

It didn't make it okay.  It didn't change what he had done.  Nothing could.  

But he had wanted something better.  That's what he had been trying to tell her every time he tried to talk about their kisses, or when he had asked if they were having a conversation.  

She had thought that he had _meant_ to be all darkness and violence, tempting her further down her wild and self-destructive spiral.  But it turned out that he had just been settling for whatever she saw fit to give him and trying to be whatever she demanded of him.  He had wanted her, fair weather or foul.  She had wanted only his storm.  

And now it was too late now to change her mind or try to set things right.  

Her vampire had flown.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the drama and for going There in Season Six. I have lots and lots of thoughts about Seeing Red, some of which may come out in the next chapter. Suffice to say I realize it's a controversial topic and I'm trying to keep things clear and nuanced because I love both Spike and Buffy.
> 
> At any rate, hope you guys enjoyed the chapter and the poetry.


	11. Monsters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for missing last week's update. I was at an academic conference and wasn't able to post. Hopefully this chapter is worth the wait! It might be a rather touchy one, since it deals with the fall-out from the last chapter. I realize that there are as many interpretations of what actually happened in Seeing Red as there are fans who were upset by it, and I myself have more thoughts on the matter than I could possibly address in a single chapter. So please bear in mind as you read that Buffy's reflections are not meant to be comprehensive, and if they seem insufficient, you're probably right.
> 
> Some lines taken from Seeing Red.

August 2002

Dawn paced through the house nervously.  Buffy had said that she would be back by 11:30 to say goodnight.  Evening patrols could be unpredictable, so she wasn't always exact in her timing, but this was extreme.  The teenager wandered back into the kitchen to look at the clock on the microwave.  1:45 a.m.  

Something must be wrong.  Even if she had to go investigate something, Buffy would have at least called the house to check in with her.  Right?

Dawn glanced at the phone next to the door.  Maybe she should call one of the Scoobies.  But that was the thing.  The only person she could really call at the moment was Xander, and he had to be at the construction site at the break of day.  If she was wrong and Buffy was really okay, she would have made him lose sleep over nothing.

 _Fifteen more minutes_ , she told herself.   _If she's not back by 2:00, then there's no way she's not in trouble, and I can call Xander and share the panic._

She left the kitchen to peer out the dining room window again.  She had been checking obsessively for the past hour, trying to reassure herself that summer months were usually quiet in Sunnydale and her sister was more than capable of handling ordinary monsters.

But summer was ending and fall was when Big Bads started to pop up.  And Slayers were known for their short lives.

The minutes ticked by and Dawn started doing laps around the downstairs.  Her stomach was in painful knots.  She had just returned to check the kitchen clock again when she heard the lock turn at the front door.  She raced to meet her sister as the blonde shuffled into the house.

"Where the hell were you?  And why didn't pick up a damn phone and call?" she screeched.  "Are you _trying_ to scare the living daylights out of me?"

Dawn was prepared to turn the questions into a full-on rant, but checked herself when she caught sight of Buffy's face.  Her sister's green eyes were widening with shock, dried tears streaked with mascara smudged down her cheeks.  Her mouth parted into a soft "oh" as if the teenager had just struck her.

The knot returned to Dawn's stomach.  She hadn't seen that look on her sister's face in several months.  She had thought Buffy had been doing better since Willow had stopped trying to kill them all and gone off to England for rehabilitation.  Was that just a temporary lull in the storm?

"Wh-what is it?

Buffy gripped the bannister for support.  

"You knew," she whispered.

Dawn swallowed at the look of hurt on Buffy's face.  What had she done?

"Knew what?"

Her sister was swaying dangerously, as if she might collapse if she let go of the bannister.

"You knew about my book.  You knew that Spike...that Angel didn't write..."  

She was gasping with emotion.  Dawn felt her stomach drop to her feet as her sister tried to gather herself.  She gave a guilty little nod, unable to speak.

" _Why?"_ Buffy managed.  "Why didn't you tell me?"

Dawn bit her lip and stared at the floor.

"I-I wanted to," she said softly.  "I even tried a couple of times.  But he didn't want me to say anything, so..."

"Why?" her sister asked again.  "Why didn't he want you to?"

Dawn glanced up at her again.  "I don't know.  He just said it wasn't the right time.  I thought...well, at the time I thought...that he just didn't want to hurt you..."

 _But then he did,_ she added mentally, as the unforgiveable black-and-white image of a vampire and a vengeance demon lying across a table flitted through her head.

Buffy slumped to the floor next to the first step.  She closed her eyes, pain stamped across her features. 

"He didn't want to hurt me," she repeated softly.  

A large leather folder that Dawn hadn't noticed slipped from her hands.  A few pages floated out of it.  The teenager eyed them tentatively, recognizing the hand but not registering the words.

"What is all this?

Her sister gave a strangled laugh.  "Evidence."

"Evidence of what?"

Buffy looked up at her, the ache in her eyes replaced with uncertainty.  She seemed to be having some sort of internal debate.  Finally, she gave a little sigh.

"Dawnie, there's something I need to tell you about me and Spike," she answered.  She paused.  "And you're not going to like it."

 

**********

 

The two sisters sat side by side in the hallway, staring blankly at the opposing wall.  Dawn's head was reeling in shock.  Some of what Buffy had told her she had already known.  But their conversation after discovering Spike and Anya on the nerds' cameras had just been a barebones account of her sister's depression and guilt over her affair with the vampire.

This was so much more.

Dawn closed her eyes, remembering the last real conservation she'd had with Spike.  She had been full of righteous fury on her sister's behalf.  He had been drinking more heavily than usual, sitting in his armchair and not even looking up at her.

 

_"Everyone's pretty mad at you."_

_"Yeah, kinda picked up on that."_

_"You're not going to be coming around anymore, are you?"_

_"It's complicated, Niblet."_

_She gave a bitter laugh.  "Everyone's been saying that."_

_"Must be true then."_

 

She looked at her sister.  "He told me it was complicated."

"It was."  Buffy brought up her knees and pressed her face into them.  " _God_ , it was."

"I-I thought he was just trying to put me off.  That he was just trying to make excuses for what he did with Anya."

"He was telling you the truth.  It _was_ complicated, even then.  I was the one who told him to move on.  I was just upset about how fast he had done it."

"It was still wrong!" Dawn insisted.  "He did it to hurt you."

Buffy shook her head.  "He did it _and_ it hurt me.  There's a difference.  He didn't know there were cameras."

"But what he did in the bathroom...you can't make excuses for that."

"No," her sister said heavily.  "I can't.  But we didn't start out in the bathroom.  Up until that point, I was the one doing the bulk of the violence.  I mean--don't get me wrong--he said and did a lot of things that he shouldn't have.  But so did I."

"So what?  You're saying you deserved it?" Dawn's voice rose.

"No!  No, that's not what I'm saying at all."  Buffy put a hand on her shoulder, as if to calm her down.  "No one deserves that."  She gave a small sigh and leaned back.  "What I'm saying is that things between us could have gone differently.  And the fact that they didn't wasn't only his fault."

"I don't care!  Whatever you did, it couldn't have been as bad as that!"  

The teenager looked desperately at her sister, willing her to confirm her words.  But Buffy just eyed her sadly.  

"Couldn't it?" she whispered.  "I guess it doesn't matter.  Playing the blame game never really makes anything better."  She paused.  "But for what it's worth, Dawnie, I beat him up pretty badly...and not just when we were...together."

"But Buffy...you've beat up plenty of vamps before.  You've never felt guilty about that."

Buffy shook her head.  "This was different," she said.  "He wasn't doing anything wrong.  Or well--I suppose he sort of was, at least with the body, but that's not the point."

"Body?" Dawn's heart leapt into her throat.

Her sister nodded.  "It-it was that night I was going to turn myself in over Katrina," she said softly.  "Spike had said he would take care of it.  He tried to hide the body to protect me.  It didn't work."  

Buffy gave a deep sigh before continuing slowly.  

"That night at the station...I hated myself," Buffy said slowly.  "God, I hated myself so _much_.  And you were right.  I wanted them to take me away.  Not just because it was easier, but because it felt like the best way to punish myself for not being...who I used to be."

The hollow feeling inside Dawn grew as she remembered how distant and listless her sister had seemed over the past year.  She reached out to catch Buffy's hand as she continued to exorcize the dark parts of herself.  

"When hiding the body didn't work, he tried to stop me from entering the police station in person. I-I hit him.  And he let me.  I beat him to the ground and I didn't stop.  Not even after he was down." 

She looked down at her knees, shame written over her features.  Dawn stared at her in wide-eyed shock, remembering the bruises that had appeared on Spike's face the following day.

"He told me he got into a bar fight with some Fyarls," she said with a tremble.

Buffy snorted bitterly.  "Fyarls carry a mean punch, alright.  But they're not Slayers."

Dawn swallowed, remembering how scary Buffy had been when she had first found out the truth about her.  She hadn't understood what was going on back then, or why her sister was suddenly turning on her, but she could recall her arm being nearly broken by barely-checked Slayer strength.

"I almost followed you that night, you know," she told her sister softly.  "I thought about getting up and going to the police station to beg you not to do it.  I didn't...because I was too scared...and because I was mad at you.  But I thought about it."

Buffy looked at her with a level gaze.  "You know I would never hurt you, right?  If it had been you in Spike's place, we might have argued.  But I would _never_ have hit you."

"I know," Dawn reassured her, drawing closer to her sister.  "You don't hurt humans.  That's why you were there at the station in the first place."  She hesitated.  "But you do hurt vampires."

Buffy smiled wanly.  "That I do.  I suppose it made it easier that he was the one who tried to stop me.  He was someone I was _allowed_ to hit."  

She let the smile fade.  

"He made it simple for me.  He vamped out, reminded me of what he was.  I was screaming at him--screaming all sorts of things.  I don't even remember them all.  But he never fought back.  He just took it.  Like he thought it was the most natural thing in the world, being beaten by the woman he loved."

Dawn shuddered.  "What made you stop?  Why didn't you just end up staking him?"

"I'm not sure," Buffy said hesitantly.  "I think...I think it was that at some point I looked down and...and...and suddenly he was a man again."

Her voice had taken on a slight rasp.

"I guess he couldn't hold his game face through the whole beating.  He changed back...and...eventually...I _saw_ him.  And I felt so...so..." Buffy seemed to struggle for the words.  "...I felt the way he  _looked_ , up there in the bathroom.  Except he fled the scene, and I just turned and walked away.  I'm not sure how he made it home."

Buffy frowned, as if suddenly realizing something.

"You know, he never vamped out in the bathroom," she remarked.

"Does it matter?" Dawn asked.

"I don't know," Buffy said honestly.  "Maybe?"

She reached for one of the papers on the floor and read through the poem written on it.  Dawn watched her curiously, itching to see what he had written but trying to give her sister space at the same time.  Finally, Buffy gave another sigh and returned the paper to the folder. She leaned back once more, as if struggling to solve a puzzle on the ceiling.

"I think he knew..." she said slowly.  "...that night at the police station...that the things I said and did weren't really about him.  I think he knew I was desperate for someone to take it out on."  She paused.  "' _Put it all on me.'_ That's what he told me.  I think...well, I think he vamped out partly because he was just angry...but also think it may have to...I don't know...give me permission or something."

"Permission?"

She nodded.  "Permission to treat him as the monster...so I wouldn't treat myself that way."

"But wasn't he a monster, in the end?" Dawn asked, not sure what answer she was hoping Buffy would give her.

Her sister stared at her knees for a moment, as if considering the question.

"That's the thing," she said finally. "He might have wanted me to see him as a monster at the police station...but I don't think that's what he wanted up in the bathroom.  He wasn't angry.  He kept his human face the entire time.  It was more like he was...desperate.  After everything we'd been through and done to each other...he wanted me to see him...to see him as a man."

Buffy scratched absently at the leather folder.

"That's the real tragedy, isn't it?" she said.  "What he did was monstrous.  But he did it as a man."

A lump formed in Dawn's throat as her last conversation with him flitted through her mind again.

 

_"Do you love her?" she asked.  There was no answer, but the pain in the room screamed out the answer.  "Then how could you do that to her?"_

_"Oh, right, 'cause Big Sis was treating me so well up until that point."_

_Dawn sighed in annoyance, while the vampire stared blankly out into space._

_Finally, he spoke._

_"Must still be a bit of the evil left in me after all."_

_Dawn didn't want to hear it.  She didn't want to hear his excuses for hurting her sister._

_"I don't know what happened between you two," she said coldly.  "But what you did last night...If you wanted to hurt Buffy, congratulations.  It worked."_  

_She turned and left him to his bottle of whiskey._

 

"After you told me about the two of you, I went to visit him," she whispered.  

Buffy looked at her in surprise.

"I was...harsh," Dawn admitted.  "He told me you weren't treating him well, but I thought…"

Her sister looked down at her knees ruefully.

"You thought he just meant the same way I wasn't really treating anyone well," she said softly. 

Dawn winced.  She hadn't meant to make things worse for her.

Buffy put a hand on her arm.  "It's okay.  I know I wasn't the most pleasant person to be around this year.  But Spike got the brunt of it."

"I-I think I may have made things even worse," Dawn said in a small voice.  "I think I may have pushed him over the edge."

Buffy sat up straight and gripped her arm.

"No Dawnie, you can't think like that," she said, looking her squarely in the eye.  "You can't take that on yourself.  You didn't know the whole story.  He knew that.  Whatever you said...it may have hurt, but it didn't force him to react that way."

"But I assumed...and he was so depressed..."

"I was depressed too," Buffy said firmly.  "That didn't make what I did okay."

"But--"

"Dawnie, listen to me," her sister said, giving her a gentle shake.  "He had choice.  He could have done a lot of other things, but he didn't.  The choice he made was horrible and wrong--and maybe he didn't even fully understand what he was choosing at the time--but it was _his_.  You can't rob him of that.  It's not fair to him."

Dawn stared at her sister, trying to understand.  

"That's what I've been trying to tell you this whole time.  We both made our choices, and they were bad ones.  And we both had reasons for making our bad choices.  But reasons aren't always the same things as excuses."

Buffy closed her eyes and took several deep breaths before going on.

"You know what I kept calling him?" she said.  It wasn't a question.  "I called him an _evil, soulless thing_.  Well, he never denied being evil or soulless.  And maybe those things factored into what happened.  Maybe they make it better.  Maybe the they make it worse.  I'm not sure I know anymore."

Buffy looked down at the folder she was holding.

"But what I'm finally getting..." she said softly, "...what all these poems and my book upstairs prove...is that he's not a _thing_.  He never was.  He's a person.  I don't know how much of that person is human and how much is demon, but he _is_ a person.  And people have choices."

She smiled up at Dawn through her tears.  "That's why...if you forgive him...if you forgive _me_...you have to understand the whole story.  You have to understand that neither of us were just innocent victims."

"Is that what you want?" Dawn asked, tears streaming down her own face as well.  "For me to forgive him?"

Buffy looked at her seriously.  "I can't tell you to forgive him.  Or me.  You have to decide that for yourself.  But I hope you can."

"Why?"

Buffy's face turned tender as she looked down at the folder, fingering the leather.

"Because...I think I do," she whispered.  "Or at least I'm starting to.  It's probably going to take some time."  She smiled sadly.  "Someone once told me that to forgive was an act of compassion.  It's not done because people deserve it, but because they need it."

She placed her hand on Dawn's arm again.

"I need your forgiveness, Dawn, for my part in what happened to your friendship with him.  And I need his too, for so many things.  Part of me wishes he were here so I could apologize to him."  Her mouth twisted into a wry smile.  "But I suppose it's better that he's not.  We never were very good with words.  We'd probably just end up punching each other."

Buffy sighed.

"He needs my forgiveness too.  And I do wish, wherever he is in the world, that I could tell him...tell him that he has it," she said.  She stood up and offered her hand to her sister.  Dawn took it numbly.

"He needs your forgiveness as well, Dawnie.  But like I said, that's something only you can decide to give.  I don't think either of us would blame you if can't."

Dawn bit her lip.  "I don't know what I want," she whispered honestly.  "If he were here right now, I'm not sure what I would say to him."

Buffy patted her.  "Well, luckily you don't have to make up your mind tonight.  It's late.  We should probably both be in bed."

Dawn swallowed.  "W-would you mind if I looked at the poems you found?" she asked tentatively.

Buffy hesitated.  

"If you like," she said, cautiously handing her the folder, "but Dawnie...they're all that I have left of…us.  I'd like them back when you're done."

Dawn nodded.  "I promise."

The two girls headed upstairs slowly, hugged, and went into their respective bedrooms.  After she closed the door, Dawn sat on her bed in a daze.  Slowly, she opened the folder and pulled out the poem Buffy had been looking at earlier.   _Heat_ , it was called.  She shivered at the word, then curled into a ball and began to read in the dim light of her night lamp.

 

**********

 

The first thing Buffy noticed when she woke up was how brightly the sun was shining through her window.  The curtains were all aglow with the warmth.  The second thing she noticed was the poetry book sitting on her bedside table.

The events of the previous night came rushing back to her.

She sat up and reached for the book.  It felt strange in her hand, now that she knew who had really written the things in it.  She knew every single page in it by heart, and yet it seemed like she was looking at it for the very first time.  

Buffy opened the book to the title page, staring for a long time at the only word that had come from Angel.  Between the shock of reading Spike's poems in the crypt and the pain of relating to Dawn the whole sad story, she had almost forgotten that there was another vampire involved.

The warm sunshine suddenly felt chilling as Buffy traced the word with her finger.  

 _Always._   

She had traced it thousands of times, and every time had been a source of comfort to her.  Angel would always be her first love and she would always be his girl.  It was the talisman she had carried in her heart even through her relationship with Riley.  It was what she held onto even in her darkest days with Spike.

Now it made her blood run cold.

It would be so much easier if it had been a complete lie.  But it wasn't, she realized.  Because Angel had done the worst thing possible.  He'd abandoned her without ever really freeing her. She thought of all the times he'd shown up at precisely the wrong moment.   _Staking his claim_ , she thought.  Making sure that however much she tried to move on, he would still be in the back of her mind.  He had sold her a vision of destiny, of true love doomed to eternal separation.

And silly, naive moron that she was, she'd bought it--hook, line, and sinker.

_Always._

Ironic that the only word he's given her sounded so much like a promise of commitment, of enduring love.  The kind of love that would endure torture for her.  That would be there for her sister even after she was gone.  That would bear the whiplash of her bad treatment with a patience that defied everything she had been told about soulless creatures.

It occurred to her suddenly that the words on the subsequent pages had been written for a madwoman.  It couldn't have been easy, living with Drusilla.  Spike's sire was strange and unpredictable, but he had crooned over her like she was a living pearl.  And Drusilla had been the reason he had come to the Hellmouth in the first place.  Buffy wondered why it had never struck her as strange until now that Spike had come to Sunnydale looking for a cure for his sick girlfriend.

The more she thought about it, the more absurd it seemed that she had ever thought the love she and Angel had shared was somehow more mature than Spike and Drusilla's.  When he had showed up in Sunnydale again, he had seemed rather ridiculous, all drunk and vengeful and looking for a magical cure.  But he had been with Drusilla for twelve solid decades.  He had a _right_ to be upset at the way he had been dumped.  She and Angel, on the other hand, had only known each other for three years.  And he had spent at least some of that time actively tormenting her.  And then he had left her, but not before chaining her heart to his forever.

_Always._

The word sat there, coarse and profane.  It was an insult to the sincere loves expressed in the forty-four pages that followed.  Angel had taken something precious and cheapened it.  And the shameful thing was that coming in a different context, his message might have been beautiful.

Suddenly, the realization fell upon Buffy like a lightning bolt.  

A bouquet of roses was a beautiful thing, unless it came wrapped in a threatening black ribbon.  An intimate portrait of a woman asleep was a beautiful thing, unless it came from a murderous stalker.  And a lover walking in to find his beloved surrounded by rose petals was a beautiful thing, unless she was dead.

Angelus had done all those things.  He had perverted more symbols of love than she could recall.  

But Angel had been in full possession of his soul when he had taken this book, filled with the beauty of two different loves--because, she thought angrily, poor Elizabeth Browning had as much right to be insulted as Spike--and turned it into a something ugly and false and poisonous.  And unlike Spike, who had given into a violent but momentary passion, Angel had done all this in the cold light of reason.  He had known exactly what he was doing.  He just hadn't cared.

It was evil.  

More importantly, it was the _same_ kind of evil that he had shown when he was soulless.  It was just less obvious than before.  Which meant...Buffy's eyes widened...maybe they weren't such different people after all.  Maybe...whatever differences were there...the line was a lot blurrier than she had ever wanted to believe.

And if they weren't different people, then _Angel_ was the one who had stalked and tormented her, _Angel_ was the one who had left her sinister gifts, and _Angel_ was the one who had killed Jenny Calendar.

Buffy fingered the pages of the book, considering the irony.  She had spent all this time treating Spike as nothing but a soulless monster and trying very hard to ignore the man who kept clamoring for her attention.  But with Angel, she had been so intent on seeing the man that she had ignored the monster.

Turning back to the title page, Buffy considered Angel's message one last time.

 _Always._  

Spike was gone from her life, probably forever.  It was unlikely that she would ever get a chance to heal the wounds she had inflicted on him or forgive the one that had caused him to flee in the first place.  But she _could_ do one thing for him at least.  And maybe it would help them both.

With a determined smile, Buffy tore the title page from the book.  

It gave a satisfying _rrrrrip_ as it came, as if the book itself were sighing in relief that it was finally free of its ugly scar.  Buffy's smile grew wider. 

  _I know what you mean_ , she told it.  

She tore the page into little pieces and headed downstairs to throw them in the kitchen trash. Then she looked at the clock on the microwave.  

7:13 a.m.  It was Wednesday.  Garbage pickup day.  

She giggled, feeling lightheaded as she lifted the trash bag from the can, knotted the top, and met the garbage truck at the curb.  She knew there was still one more thing she had to do, but as the truck rumbled away with its cargo, a strange exhilaration ran through Buffy.

It felt like liberation.

 

**********

 

"Dawn?"

The teenager opened her bleary eyes and looked at the clock.  7:30. What was Buffy thinking?  Dawn wouldn't start high school for another two weeks.  Couldn't her sister just let her sleep?  It wasn't like it hadn't been a really, really long and painful night.

"Dawnie!"

With a sigh, Dawn threw back the covers and padded sleepily into Buffy's room.  The Slayer was flitting around the room like a blonde hummingbird.  There was a small suitcase sitting on her bed and she was throwing things into it.

Suddenly, Dawn was wide-awake.

"What's going on?" she asked nervously.

"Dawnie, I need you to call Xander and ask him if he can come stay with you for a few days."

"Why?" Dawn asked warily.  "Where are you going?"

Buffy paused in her packing to look her straight in the eye.  There was a hard, eager glint that Dawn hadn't seen in her expression in a long time.

The Slayer smiled grimly, clicking the suitcase closed.

"Los Angeles."


	12. Just Deserts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully there's enough information here to help someone along if they haven't seen AtS, but this is another crossover episode that will make a lot more sense if you have. A considerable chunk of dialogue has been taken from the AtS episode Deep Down.

August 2002

 

Buffy stared numbly across the dark waters, a hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach.  So far, this trip had not gone the way she had hoped.  

When she had arrived in LA, she had rushed straight for the Hyperion, hell-bent on giving Angel a long overdue beating.  But Angel hadn't been there to take it.  The squirrelly-but-sweet girl behind the front desk had told her tearfully that both Angel and Cordy had been missing for the past three months.  Wesley had also left the team, but apparently he was still in town.  When Buffy had tried to press Fred for more information, the girl had cast a furtive look over at her demon hunter boyfriend and discreetly written his address on a sticky note.

Buffy had followed the address and walked into Wesley's apartment only to find him sitting in his kitchen, interrogating a red-headed woman roped to a chair.  Her former Watcher had risen as soon as he saw her, assuring her in a pained voice that it wasn't what it looked like.  Buffy wasn't sure what it _had_  looked like, but since Wesley wasn't the first Watcher she'd known to keep someone chained up in his apartment, she decided to give him the benefit of a doubt. 

Yet as his story came rushing out, she found herself wishing that she had just left the Hyperion and gone straight back home.  

Because her former Watcher told her _everything_. 

Darla's resurrection and re-siring.  The massacre of the Wolfram & Hart lawyers.  Angel's attempt to kill Drusilla and Darla.  His one-night stand with his old flame.

Buffy shuddered, remembering how her ex had shown up to comfort her at her mother's funeral.  No wonder he had been so vague when she had asked about him how his year had been.  She had been too preoccupied with her own worries at the time to press him for details.  

Unfortunately, the story hadn't ended there.  

Wesley also told her about Darla's pregnancy and death.  He told her about Holtz' quest for revenge.  At that point, he had paused in his story and stared down at his coffee table for a long time.  Then, in an even quieter voice, he told her about the kidnapping of Connor and his own part in it.  He told her about the boy's return and his hatred of his father and Holtz' death.  By the time he finally reached the part when Justine had helped Connor sink the vampire into the ocean, Buffy had been forced to excuse herself to the bathroom, feeling nauseated for the second time in forty-eight hours.

Once she had recovered, Buffy had offered to help him find the vampire.  She could feel Wesley's hesitation.  He had been planning on using Justine to find Angel. Buffy had pointed out that her Slayer senses were the better guide to the only vampire in the middle of the ocean.  Wesley had relented, but insisted on taking Justine with them as insurance in case her information turned out to be lies.  They had locked her in the hold of his boat as they headed toward the coordinates she had given them.

Now that she was on the water, however, Buffy began to wonder what she was doing.  A small part of her was whispering that maybe Angel's son had had the right idea, that he deserved to stay at the bottom of the ocean where he couldn't hurt anyone else.

But abandoning people was what _he_ did.  It wasn't what she did.

She snuck a glance over her left shoulder.  Wesley was at the helm, pensive and silent.  He didn't look anything like the pompous tweed-clad Watcher she remembered from her senior year. For all his obnoxious arrogance, he had seemed innocent back then.  Now he looked thin and a vicious scar ran across his neck.  His face held the haunted air of a war survivor, the look of a man who had been hardened by horrors he had both committed and suffered.

He cleared his throat.

"I should warn you, Buffy," he said quietly.  "It is highly unlikely that Angel will be pleased to see me.  He no longer considers me a friend."

Buffy considered him for a moment.  What Wesley had done with Connor had been terrible.  His intentions may have been good, but he had acted on them without consulting anyone else first.  

 _It's like something Willow would do_ , she realized.   _Or Angel._   

It had taken Willow nearly ending the world before she recognized her own arrogance.  Buffy wasn't sure Angel ever had.  But the lines in Wesley's face told a different story.  The darkness that hovered around him wasn't arrogance.  It was despair.  He hadn't forgiven himself and apparently none of his friends had either.

"That's okay," she told him, and she thought she saw some of the tension leave his face.  She looked back at the lapping waves.  "I don't really care what pleases Angel anymore.  This is a mercy mission, nothing more."

Wesley lifted an eyebrow but said nothing.

A few minutes later, Buffy felt the familiar tingle of an Aurelian on the back of her neck.

"I can sense him," she said.  "We're close."  She pointed off the starboard side.  "Head that way."

"Are you sure?" Wesley asked.

Buffy nodded.  "I'd know his signature anywhere," she said simply.

It only took them another ten minutes to find the spot and another thirty for Buffy to dive down and hook cables onto the capsule so they could lift it off the ocean floor.  She maintained careful concentration on her task, willing herself not to look at the vampire's face until they had managed to pull the massive contraption onto the safety of the boat.

It was only when they had removed the heavy lid that she allowed herself to look down at him.  She bit her lip.  

It wasn't as bad as she had feared, but it wasn't good either.  She remembered what Spike had told her about vampires who couldn't feed and had been expecting a skeleton.  Angel hadn't seemed to have lost much weight, but he was clearly weak.  He wasn't conscious at the moment, but it seemed like he must have been drifting in and out because he had several abrasions on his face, as if he had been knocking it against the glass.

Buffy helped Wesley free him from the interior cables and the two of them dragged the vampire below deck and laid him out on the table.  She watched as Wesley pulled out several plastic baggies of human blood and began easing the contents slowly into Angel's mouth.

"I do hope we brought enough," he said worriedly.  "Vampires can't die from hunger but prolonged starvation can cause severe brain damage."

"We have enough," Buffy assured him.  

The Watcher eyed her hesitantly.  "He would probably heal faster if--"

"Wesley," she cut him off firmly.  "If you're about to suggest that he needs Slayer blood, I might just have to bend my rule about not hurting humans.  Angel's tasted my blood once before.  He's not getting it again."

"But--"

"No.  We have enough."

Wesley looked upset but didn't push further.  Buffy supposed she couldn't blame the man for trying.  But he was the one trying to atone for his actions here, not her.  If he wanted to give Angel his own blood, that was his choice.  The only thing Buffy owed her ex-lover was a sound thrashing.

The Watcher finished feeding the vampire and Buffy moved closer, putting a hand on his arm.  "We should head back to shore," she told him.  "I'll watch him while you steer."

Wesley looked at her suspiciously, clearly wondering why she was suddenly acting so harsh toward her ex.  She gave him a pained but reassuring smile.

"Don't worry.  I didn't help you pull him out of the ocean just to stake him."

He nodded and headed up stairs.  A few minutes later the engine started to hum and she felt the boat turn.  She pulled up a chair next to the table and sat down, contemplating the vampire.

It irked her that every time she had been prepared to cut all her emotional ties to Angel, something like this happened.  He goes evil and she has to kill him to save the world?  Willow's spell works right at the last moment.  She's ready to move on and try to love again?  The Powers that Be send him back from hell, all needy and suffering.  And now that she's finally ready to lay into him about the book, she has to rescue him first.  It was like some sort of sick cosmic joke.

Well, it ended now.  

Buffy was too tired to deal with his shit any longer.  She supposed most people would say that this wasn't the right time to read him the riot act, that he was suffering enough as it was.  She supposed they would also say that she should just go home without mentioning the book at all.  Most people would probably feel sorry for him right now.

But most people didn't really know Angel.

If Buffy backed down now, she would never be free of him.  He would recover from this experience and find out that she had helped rescue him.  If she left now, he would just assume that she had done it because she was still in love with him.  He would interpret it as romance rather than generosity. And then at some point in the future, he would be back to interfere in her life again with his puppy-dog eyes and guilt trips. 

She wasn't going to stand for it.  Not this time.  And if she was going to confront him about the book, it needed to be now, awkward circumstances be damned.

Almost as if he could read her thoughts, Angel stirred next to her.  He was muttering something.  Buffy leaned closer.

"Cordel...Cordelia," he whispered, his eyelids fluttering. "Cordelia...I love..."

Despite herself, Buffy felt a slight pang.  It shouldn't have surprised her, she supposed.  From what Wesley had told her about Darla, Angel had clearly moved on as much as she had.  She wondered dully if he had been tempted yet to have a moment of pure happiness with her old high school rival.  Maybe that was why Cordelia had skipped town.  Buffy couldn't blame her.

Angel opened his eyes, looking at her in confusion.  He reached up and touched her face weakly with an icy hand.

"Darla?"

Buffy sighed.  At least he got the hair color right this time.

"No, it's Buffy."

"Buff…?"  

"Yes, Buffy.  Remember me?  The one true love of your life?"  She couldn't quite keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

"You...you're not here.  You're in Sunny..."  He frowned.  

Buffy sighed.  He was still only half-conscious.

"I'm here," she said quietly.  "I pulled you out of the water.  Don't make anything of it."

"You're angry..." he said, lifting his head slightly.  His voice was slurred.  "Why are you...is it because...of the makeup?"

Buffy looked at him coldly.

"What about my makeup?  You never did it, Angel," she said.  And what a relief that thought was.  Buffy cringed inwardly at her stupidity for ever having thought Angel would dream of something romantic like that.  She was glad now that she had never gotten the chance to act on the poem.

But Angel was shaking his head in delirium.

"Tried...thought I could...runt did...did it for Dru..."  His eyes remained unfocused as he mumbled.  "...not fair...shouldn't have been able to...doesn't have a soul...called her his prin... princess..."

Buffy felt the air around her chill.  What did he mean, he tried?  She searched her mind for any time when Angel might have handed her a stick of lipstick or done anything remotely close to the lines in  _Playing Mirror_ , but she couldn't think of anything.  She grabbed hold of Angel's arm, willing him to be coherent enough to talk to her.

"What do you mean, Angel?  You _never_ did my makeup!" she repeated.

Angel's eyes cleared a little.  "Di- _did,_ " he insisted.  "...don't remember...told them...told them...swallow the day..."  His eyes fogged up again and his head lolled the other way.  He was still muttering quietly, but it seemed his mind had moved onto Wesley and Connor.

Buffy sat back in her chair, her stomach in knots.  It could be just a hallucination.  But if her recent discoveries had taught her anything, it was to be suspicious of anything that came out Angel's mouth.  His ramblings may have been confused, but they didn't seem random.  Which meant they probably weren't delusions.  He was remembering something.  Something _she_ didn't remember.

Whatever small bit of sympathy she had been feeling for his plight evaporated.  There was something more that Angel was hiding from her.  And it had to do with the last poem in Spike's book.

Suddenly, she was very glad she had pulled him from the ocean.  She was glad they had brought enough human blood to help him heal, and she was very glad that he would soon be able to talk coherently.

Because talk he would.

 

**********

 

Angel stared down at the teenage boy in the corner.  His son was glaring up at him, hatred stamped across his features.  The vampire leaned in the doorway, grateful for the human blood coursing through his veins, giving him the strength to confront his offspring like a parent.

"So," he said coolly, "how was your summer?  Mine was fun.  Saw some fish. Went mad with hunger.  Hallucinated a whole bunch."

Connor never blinked.  "You deserved worse."

"Because I killed Holtz.  Except I didn't," Angel took a step forward, frustrated.  "I tried telling you that while you were busy offshore dumping me, but I didn't know the whole score.  Holtz killed himself."  

He paused a moment for dramatic effect.  

"Actually, he had your buddy Justine do it with an ice pick, just to make you hate me."

The teenager hesitated.  "Even if--you still deserved it."

A familiar twinge of guilt coursed through Angel.  He had to hand it to Connor.  The boy knew where to aim his daggers.  In the grand scheme of things, Angel probably _did_  deserve to be stuck at the bottom of the ocean forever.  But he couldn't let his son know that.  This was about Connor's actions, not his.

"What I deserve is open to debate," he told his son, "but understand that there is a difference between _wishing_ vengeance on someone...and _taking_ it."  He stood upright, full of parental fury.  "So now, the question becomes...what do _you_ deserve?"

Connor tried to bolt, but Angel intercepted him.  He tossed his son roughly against the wall.

"Daddy's not finished talking."

Angel took several steps until he was standing over his son.  He crouched down, looking the angry teenager straight in the eye.

"Wesley told me everything that's been going on.  So as far as I'm concerned, what you _deserve_  rests on one answer."  He paused again.  "Did you do something to Cordelia?"

The boy blanched.  "No."

"He's lying."  Fred came up behind him.  Angel had almost forgotten that she and Gunn were there, witnessing the whole confrontation.

"No, I'm not!"  For the first time, Connor looked genuinely terrified.

"No way she just _happened_ to disappear on the same night!" Gunn protested.

The teenager looked at his father nervously.

"I'm telling the truth, okay?"

Angel looked at him for a moment.  "I know.  I can tell."  He stood up.  "You've done enough lying for me to tell the difference.  The truth has a better sound to it...less nasal, you know?"

He considered his son coldly for several seconds.

"Get up."

For perhaps the first time in his life, Connor obeyed.

Angel stood over him, awkwardly remembering standing before his own father, knees knocking at the man's stern and unyielding expression.

"What you did to me...was unbelievable, Connor," he began.  "But then I got stuck in a hell dimension by my girlfriend one time for a hundred years, so three months under the ocean actually gave me perspective.  Kind of a M.C. Escher perspective...but I did get time to think.  About us, about the world."

Connor looked at him blankly.  It occurred to Angel that someone who had grown up in a hell dimension himself probably didn't find his story all that disturbing.  And that even in this dimension, not many teenagers would be familiar with Escher.

 _Keep it simple_ , he told himself, plunging ahead.

"Nothing in this world is the way it ought to be.  It's harsh and cruel," he said, the glowing feeling of conviction growing in his chest.  "But that's why there's us.  Champions.  It doesn't matter where we come from, what we've done or suffered, or even if we make a difference.  We live as though the world was what it should be.  What it can be.  You're not a part of that yet.  I hope you will be."

He took a step forward, looking down at his son. 

"I love you Connor," he said.  He paused once more.  "Now get out my house."

The teenager stared at him for several long minutes, then walked out of the office.  A few moments later, he heard the hotel's front door slam shut.  

Angel sat down with a sigh.  Fred and Gunn moved to help him, but they were stopped by the sound of female voice.

"Beautiful speech, Angel."

Angel turned in his chair to look at the petite blonde standing in the doorway, arms crossed.  His eyes widened in surprise.

"Buffy?"

Fred and Gunn exchanged glances.  They quietly excused themselves from the room, leaving Slayer and vampire to talk privately.

Angel stood up and moved slowly to the delicious vision standing before him.  Then he paused, considering the scene she had just witnessed.

"Buffy...that was...uh...I mean...Connor is...um..."  Angel was at a loss for words.  How did you explain to your ex that you had fathered a teenager since you last saw her?

"Connor's your son.  He dumped you in the ocean.  Wesley told me everything.  I helped him pull you out."

"Oh."  Angel shifted his weight awkwardly. "Thanks.  He didn't tell me."

"I asked him not to."

"Oh," he said again.  

"You know," she commented casually.  "Not to be all nit-picky about your little father-son moment there, but that's not actually the way I remember it."  She glanced up at him.  "The hell dimension, I mean."

She walked over to his desk and picked up a paperweight, inspecting it as if it were a crystal ball. 

"If I remember correctly, I didn't just stick you in a hell dimension because I felt like it.  Seems like there was also something about you opening a portal and trying to destroy the world."  She looked over her shoulder and gave him a wry smile.  "Details, right?"

Angel felt a prickle of discomfort, unsure where this conversation was heading.

"I didn't think...that was beside the point," he defended himself.  "What he did was..."

"Unacceptable.  Yes, I know.  I told you.  I was on the rescue boat.  I saw what he did."

He shuddered.  "Buffy...it was...I was starving.  I was losing it.  And it would have just gotten worse over time.  What he did to me was _torture._ "

Buffy nodded in agreement.  

"He's got his father's taste for it."

Angel froze.

Surely he had heard that incorrectly?  

For the first time since he had heard her voice, he really _looked_ at Buffy.  She was as beautiful as she had always been, although a little old for his tastes now.  She'd lost that sweet air of innocence that he remembered in his dreams.  The woman before him had an edge of confidence that made him slightly uncomfortable.

Because she was also crackling with rage.

"Buffy...what's going on?  What's this all about?" 

She was quiet for a moment, still examining the paperweight.  Finally, she looked up at him, determination in her eye.

"When did you do my makeup, Angel?"

His stomach dropped.

"Wh-what do you mean?"

She set the paperweight down and crossed her arms.

"On the boat," she answered.  "You said you did my makeup.  But--funny story-- _I_ don't remember you doing any such thing."

Angel swallowed.  Wesley hadn't said anything about him talking in his half-conscious state.

"Look, I don't know what you heard," he said, trying to keep his voice calm.  "But you have to realize I was delirious.  Whatever I said...I was just hallucinating."

She gave a small snort.

"Yeah, I sort of thought you'd say that.  But guess what, Angel?"  She leaned forward conspiratorially.  "You've done enough lying for me to know the difference now.  It's got that...what did you call it?... _nasal_ sound.  Know what I mean?"

If Angel had been human, his heart would have started pounding a little harder at her tone.  As it was, he licked his lips nervously and tried a different tack.

"This is ridiculous," he said dismissively.  "I don't have to listen to this."  

He tried to turn and leave the room, but before he could do so, Buffy gave the desk a powerful kick.  It went flying across the room, and Angel suddenly found himself pinned against the wall.

"Buffy!" he cried in protest.  "That was _wooden_!"

"Was it?" she asked innocently, crossing the room.  "Whoops."

Angel tried to free himself from the desk, but Buffy put a hand on it, holding it firmly in place.  He grunted.  Either his recovery hadn't progressed as much as he thought, or she was stronger than he remembered.

"Buffy, what has gotten into you?  You can't just waltz in here and--"

"Sorry, _vampire_ ," she cut him off, her voice dripping with sarcasm.  "Slayer's not finished talking."

He gaped as she perched herself on the desk and leaned forward again.

"Now...I know you're lying to me.  And I know there's a very interesting story behind the lie."  He watched her pursed her lips.  "Something involving you doing my makeup...and swallowing a day?"  She shook her head in bemusement.  "So... _lover_...I'm afraid I can't let you go until I get the truth.  The _whole_ truth."

Angel slumped his shoulders in defeat.  He should've known the missing day wouldn't stay a secret forever.  

Trying to swallow his nerves, he recounted the story of the Mohra demon and the day she didn't remember.  The Slayer listened in stony silence as he told her about the Oracles' deal and his decision to give up humanity.  He was careful, however, to avoid mention of the book.

"So let me get this straight," she said when he was finished.  "Wesley says you've spent all this time trying to...what did he call it?... _shanshu_...and become human again, but you already _were_ human again once and you gave it up."

"I did it for you!" Angel protested.  Why couldn't she appreciate his sacrifice?  "I did it so that I could fight at your side, to keep you alive."

Buffy rolled her eyes.

"Newsflash, Angel--you _haven't_  been fighting at my side.  You left me, remember?  And I hate to break it to you, but I already _have_ died.  Again.  And you were as much help to me the second time around as you were the first."

Angel narrowed his eyes.  "That's not fair and you know it.  I was in Pylea, rescuing--"

"Cordelia.  I know.  And it was good of you to do it.  I'm not complaining that you weren't there.  I'm just pointing out that if you really did choose to stay undead for my sake, you sort of wasted your efforts."  She paused.  "But you didn't really do it for my sake, did you?"

"Wh-what?  Of course I did!"

She shook her head.

"No.  If you thought I needed you for some sort of end-of-days battle, you would've come back to Sunnydale, Riley or no Riley.  Face it, Angel.  You didn't give up humanity for my sake.  You did it for yours.  And that's okay.  That part of the choice was yours to make."

Buffy stood up and shoved the desk away.  Angel was about to breathe a sigh of relief, but suddenly it was the Slayer's fist pinning him to the wall instead.  Her voice became low and ominous.

"But lying to me about that day and calling it an act of love?  Don't you dare.  Don't you _dare_."

She released him.

"Love isn't built on lies, Angel."

"I didn't _lie_ exactly, I just--"

"Conveniently forgot to tell me something really important about my own life?  Don't split hairs.  You knew it was wrong."

"Look, you're misunderstanding the whole thing.  And after all we've been through together, I think I deserve--"

"Deserve?   _Deserve?_ "  A dangerous glint entered Buffy's eye.  Without a warning, her fist shot out and landed squarely in his midsection.  Angel bent over, gasping with pain.  "You dare talk about deserving when you're _still_ lying to me?"

"I'm not--" 

Buffy raised her fist again.  "You told me about the day, Angel.  Now tell me about the makeup."

"It was nothing, I swear!" Angel said quickly.  "You just asked me to do your makeup just like in the poem--and I did.  That's all!"

"You mean the poem Spike wrote for Drusilla."

Buffy lowered her fist, but the words hung in the air like a second punch.  They stared at each other for several long minutes.

"You know," Angel whispered.

"Obviously," she answered coldly.

His eyes widened in sick horror.

"Just so we're clear on this, _Angelus_ ," Buffy continued, "what you deserve is _not_ actually open for debate.  Your son may have no right to sit in judgment of you, but deciding what to do with wayward vampires?  All part of the Slayer package."  

Her fist shot out again.  This time she went for his left eye.  "And smacking down an old boyfriend's ego?  That's just a Buffy Summers bonus!" 

She reared back for a third punch and Angel dodged it.  Her fist struck the wall and he took advantage of her momentary distraction to raise one of his own.  But before his blow could land, she caught his arm and twisted it hard.  Angel felt his left shoulder dislocate as she shoved him roughly to the ground.  He crashed into the wall.

Buffy advanced on him, pulling him to a sitting position with hands like iron pincers.  He could feel anger mixed with power pouring off her in waves, and it suddenly occurred to him that she really _could_ kill him.  It was what Slayers were built for, though it had been a long time since he had faced one down in a real fight.

"You know what really gets me, Angelus?"  Buffy gave a hollow laugh.  "I blamed _myself_.  I loved that book so much.  I read it every single night and I felt _guilty_ when I did.  Because every time I looked at your message, I'd notice the difference in the handwriting and think, _'I did that.  I sent him to hell and he suffered and it's my fault his handwriting changed.'"_

Shame flooded through him.  "I didn't mean for you...I didn't think..."

The Slayer narrowed her eyes at him.  "That's right.  You didn't think.  You took a better vampire's poems, passed them off as your own, and let me believe they were all about me."

Angel felt the bile rise up inside him.  "Spike is _not--"_

"No interruptions, Angelus," Buffy continued.  "As I said, you stole--"

"Stop calling me that!"

"Why?  Do you think you've earned the right to that distinction?"  Buffy gave him a hard look.  "Do you think you _deserve_ to be treated like a different person than the one who killed Ms. Calendar?

She crouched down, staring him straight in the eye.

"Come on, Angelus, we both know better.  All the things you did while you were soulless wouldn't be eating at you now if some part of you didn't believe it was _you_ who did them."

Angel swallowed again.

"And now I know why they do.  You really are a vampire of vampires, aren't you?  Because while Spike was busy writing love poems to Drusilla, you were trying to end the whole damn world.  No wonder you hate him so much.  He looks positively saintly next to you."

The sick twisting in Angel's stomach worsened.  It wasn't true.  Spike was soulless.  He was evil.  And Angel was different now.  He was the Champion of the Powers That Be.  That meant something.

Didn't it?

Buffy stood, pulling him to his feet at the same time.

"So the question becomes, Angelus...what do _you_ deserve?"

She considered him coldly.  Angel struggled to maintain eye contact with her.

"I can take you," he said shakily.

That seemed to amuse her.

"Please.  Make my day."  

She gave him a sickly sweet smile.  Angel hesitated.  He only had one good eye at this point, and his shoulder was dislocated.  They both knew he wasn't in position to fight her.

Quick as lighting, her fist darted out again, landing a punch in his side.

"That was for Drusilla," she told him calmly.

Her fist came at him again and he tried to block.  She caught him in his bad shoulder anyway.  He cried out in pain.

"That was for Spike."

Angel swung at her with his good arm.  She feinted and laughed, landing a third punch right in his solar plexus.

"And that was for me," she said as he crumpled again.  

Buffy turned to leave, then paused as if deliberating.  She spun around a second time and landed one last punch on his remaining good eye.

"Who was  _that_ one for?" Angel ground out.

"Elizabeth Browning," she said simply.  

He tried to glare at her, but he couldn't really see through the stars in his vision.  He suspected that she had managed to blacken both his eyes.  He felt, rather than saw, the Slayer approach him again.

Buffy placed her deceptively small hand on his shoulder.  He flinched, but she knelt by his side gently.

"I want you to understand, Angelus, that I'm giving you the same forgiveness you just dealt out.  Whether I regret it or not, you were my first love and that means something to me.  It's why you're not dust...or at the bottom of the ocean right now." 

She paused a beat.  

"But you're _not_ my champion.  You have no place in my life anymore.  Or my town.  You have something to tell me?  You send someone else.  This is the last time you will see me in L.A.  And if you ever show your face in Sunnydale again, I _will_ treat you like any other vampire.  Understood?"

He nodded dumbly.  She stood and began walking toward the door.

"Buffy," he whimpered.  Through the haziness of his vision, he saw her pause.  He swallowed and asked his question.  "For how long?"

She glanced back over her shoulder and let the hammer fall.

"Always."

 

**********

 

The door to 1630 Revello Drive gave a satisfying slam.

"I'm home!" Buffy announced unnecessarily.

 She heard shuffling in the kitchen.  Xander appeared in the dining room doorway.  Buffy grinned at her friend.

"Thanks for watching Dawnie on such short notice, Xan."

"B-Buffster," he said somewhat nervously.  "Dawnie said you were going to give Angel an earful?"

He seemed less excited about it than she would have thought, but Buffy was too exhilarated to care.

"You should have been there, Xander!" she trilled happily.  "I hit him...and can I just say how _good_ that felt?  I punched him--"

Dawn appeared in the doorway.  "Buffy..."

"--and I told him that if he ever showed his face in Sunnydale again, I would stake him, and get this--"

"Buffy..."

"---you won't believe what else he did.  There was this day with a Mohra demon---"

"Buffy!"

The Slayer faltered as she caught sight of Dawn's face.  She blinked, taking in the scene before her.  

Xander seemed to be alternating between nervousness and anger.  He was clutching a stake so tightly that Buffy could see blood seeping from his fingers.  Dawn's face was pale and streaked with tears.  She was standing in the kitchen doorway defensively, and there were scratch marks in the frame, as if she had dug her fingernails into the wood.

Fear gripped Buffy.

"Wh-what's going on?"

Dawn and Xander exchanged tense glances.  Then the teenager inched away from the door to reveal a shuddering heap on the kitchen floor.  There was a glint of bleach blond hair, and Buffy's heart skipped a beat.

She looked up into her sister's wide eyes.  Dawn's voice came out as a whisper.

"Spike's back."


	13. Misericordia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FYI, although this story follows canon pretty closely until the last few chapters, it starts to get looser around this chapter, mostly because of the events of the last three chapters. Hopefully the changes will be clear enough in the story itself that they won't need much in the way of elaboration.
> 
> The Browning poem is Sonnet I, the others are Spuffy specials. "Misericordia" is the Latin word for mercy.

December 2002

The moonlight shone through the sheer curtains of Dawn's bedroom as she tossed and turned on her pillow.  She had shut off the lights three hours ago, but sleep seemed impossible.  Her head was too full and her stomach too empty.  She glanced over at her alarm clock.

1:37 in the morning. 

She gave a sigh, grateful it was the weekend and she didn't have to be up early for school.  She shoved off her blankets with frustration, her stomach growling.  Slipping into a pair of fuzzy socks, she made her way to her closet, where she kept her secret stash of peanut butter.  Grabbing a jar and a plastic spoon, she padded over to the window seat and opened the curtains, surveying the front lawn.

Once upon a time, there would have been a vampire standing under the big tree in front of her window, littering the ground with cigarette butts.  It seemed strange that now he spent his days and nights in the Summers basement instead, curled up on a cot and chained to the wall.  Dawn supposed a stranger might wonder whether he was a patient or a prisoner.

It was a fair question.  No one seemed to know what to do with him.  

Dawn pressed her forehead to the window, remembering the night he had returned.  She and Xander had been sharing a pizza in the dining room, debating the merits of various toppings, when Spike had come staggering through the back door and collapsed on the kitchen floor.  Dawn had given a tiny scream of surprise as he crawled toward the doorway.  Then he'd stopped, hiding his head in his hands and muttering something beneath his breath.  She had stood up and tiptoed over to him, too shocked to register anything beyond his presence.  Xander, however, had gone from playful to menacing in less than ten seconds.

 

_"Get away from him, Dawn."_

_She collected herself and, ignoring Xander, moved a little bit closer._

_"Spike?"_

_"Dawn, I mean it!  Get back!"_

_"Something's wrong with him..."_

_Xander grabbed her by the arm and yanked her away._

_"Something's about to be even more wrong with him," he threatened.  He crossed the room in just a few steps and towered over the vampire, loathing in his eyes._

_Then he had raised his fist._

_Spike almost seemed to welcome the beating, making no attempt to avoid the boy's punches.  Dawn, however, screamed and cried and tried to pull the two most important men in her life away from one another.  Xander just shrugged her off, reaching for the stake he had been keeping tucked into his jeans all summer long._

_Desperate, Dawn threw herself between them, glaring at Xander for all she was worth.  The sight of her face finally checked his rage.  He lowered the stake, but did not put it away._

_"Get away from him, Dawn," he repeated.  "You don't know what he's done."_

_"Yes, I do," she said through gritted teeth.  "Buffy told me before she left."_

_She couldn't be sure, but she thought she felt the shuddering form behind her go still for a second, as if absorbing a shock.  Xander took a step back as well, confusion waging war with the fire in his eyes._

_"She-she told you?"_

_Dawn nodded._

_A muscle hardened in his jaw._

_"Then you know," he said in a voice that strained to be reasonable, "that he needs to be dusted.  He's a rapist, Dawn!"  He raised his stake again.  "Should've done this years ago."_

_Dawn flinched at the ugly word, but held her ground._

_"It's Buffy's decision," she said stubbornly.  "Not ours."_

_"Buffy shouldn't have to look at his worthless face ever again!"_

_That made Dawn mad._

_"Buffy's the Slayer, Xander, not you.  And she's the one he hurt.  She should be the one who gets to decide what to do with him!"_

_"Buffy can't see clearly where that thing is concerned," Xander spat.  "Someone else has to rid the world of him for her."_

_Dawn stuck out her jaw._

_"No,"_

_Xander moved as if to shove her aside again.  But Dawn grabbed the doorframe, digging her nails into the wood and her heels into the kitchen floor.  He hesitated.  She knew she couldn't actually keep him from attacking again if he tried, but he wasn't going to get through the doorway without hurting her.  And then he would be answering to Buffy for two things._

_That was when the Slayer walked through the door._

Dawn screwed the lid back on the peanut butter jar and gave a sigh.  Part of her wasn't sure she had done the right thing.  Maybe Xander was right.  Maybe Buffy didn't see straight where Spike was concerned.  But however the two of them had been expecting her to react, it wasn't what had happened.  She closed her eyes.

 

_The Slayer floated toward the kitchen as if in a trance.  She barely blinked when Xander stubbornly shoved his stake into her hand._

_The vampire on the floor hadn't moved since the fight had begun, but he seemed to sense her presence.  His shaking ceased and for the first time that evening, he let his hands drop from the side of his head.  Gripping the edge of the kitchen hutch, he pulled himself to his knees and looked up, blue eyes unfocused._

_She met his gaze and his eyes cleared._

_"Buffy..." he whispered._

_They stared at each other for the longest time.  Dawn and Xander held their breaths as the Slayer searched his face, confusion stamped across her own.  He kept himself upright through her scrutiny and said nothing.  The stake that she had been holding, loose and forgotten, dropped from her hand as she reached out to touch his face tentatively._

_Then she pulled him to his feet._

Dawn took a deep breath, trying to shake herself free of the memories.  

Everything had been topsy-turvy since that night.  Xander had stomped out of the house, his face purple with bottled rage.  Buffy had coaxed Spike down into the basement and set him up with the cot.  He had been the one to insist on the chains.  The Slayer had put them on him with some reluctance.

Dawn had helped her fit the cot with sheets and a pillow.  But in the absence of an immediate threat on his life, she had found herself taking on the role of Xander.  Buffy had been so gentle that it had unnerved her.  She found herself tugging forcefully at the sheets, anger building up inside her.  Buffy had glanced at her warily but said nothing.

Then, as they were preparing to leave, something inside Dawn had snapped.  She had stood over the chained vampire and spoken with all the venomous hurt that had been tumbling around her head all summer long.

 

_"If you hurt my sister at all--touch her--you're gonna wake up on fire."_

_"Dawn!" Buffy gasped._

_She ignored the pain in her sister's voice._

_Spike stared at her with a guarded face.  Then he gave a curt nod.  She swallowed, somehow feeling both better and worse at the same time._

It had been like that for the past several months.

At least Xander and Buffy had both been consistent.  Xander wouldn't stand to be in Spike's presence for more than a few minutes at a time, repeatedly insisted that he couldn't be trusted, and threatened frequently to take the matter into his own hands.  Buffy refused to listen to him.  She took Spike on patrol with her and only chained him up when they both turned in for the night.  And even the latter measure seemed as much for his peace of mind as theirs.  He seemed to find the chains comforting.

But while her sister and her friend were drawing their lines in the sand, Dawn had wavered back and forth on how to deal with him.  Every time she stepped into the bathroom, she would picture him trying to pin her sister to the floor and get almost as angry as Xander.  Then, without any warning, she would remember his face after Glory, and suddenly he would be her friend again and she wanted nothing more than to forgive him.

It didn't help that Spike alternated between seeming perfectly fine and normal one moment and going completely out of his mind the next.

It also didn't help that the universe kept deciding to make things even more complicated.

One night Buffy had come home from patrol with the vampire slumped shirtless over her shoulder.  She had helped him to the cot in the basement, and Dawn had gasped at the sight of the burn marks covering his chest.  After they returned upstairs, Buffy had whispered that he had draped himself over a cross.

Then, after a pause, she had told her quietly that he had gotten back his soul.

Dawn didn't know what to think.  She had never had the same hang-ups her sister did about vampire souls. Spike had been her friend without it.  It _did_ shock her, however, that he had apparently sought it out himself.  He had even fought for it.

For a while after that revelation, Dawn had tried to be gentler around him.  But then it had come out that his chip wasn't working.  And he was killing again.  But he didn't know he was doing it.  Because apparently something else was messing with his head.

Dawn stared up at the moon, wondering if life was simpler somewhere else in the universe.  

She gave a short sigh and wandered back to her bed, turning on her lamp as she sat down.  Opening the drawer in her bedside table, she pulled out two slips of paper. Buffy had reclaimed the poetry folder shortly after her return from LA, but she had let Dawn keep two of the poems that were about her.

She held the first one up to the light, her heart thudding dully as she glanced at the now-familiar title.   _Bitty Buffy._ She felt her eyes prick with tears as she read.

 

_Those baby blue eyes_

_She rolls without care,_

_Ready to defy_

_With kittenish glare_

_Big Sister's efforts_

_To give her a scare_

_And keep her away_

_From my gloomy lair._

_She laughs without fear_

_And flipping her hair,_

_Makes herself at home_

_And pulls up a chair._

_No shame admitting_

_She does it with flair--_

_Lil' Bit's got moxie_

_Enough for a pair._

Dawn bit her lip, recalling a time when she had been Spike's primary defender against all the Scoobies' attacks.  He had seemed so cool back then, with his leather and his swearing and his sweet music collection and scary stories.  Because back then they were _just_ scary stories.  He didn't seem anything like the vampire he was describing, the one who probably _hadn't_ given the girl in the coal bin to a nice family.  Sure, he had done bad things like chain Buffy up.  But Dawn had been confident that he hadn't _really_ been trying to kill her sister.

Had she been wrong about him back then?

She closed her eyes, remembering the look he had given her on the tower.  For that one split second, his face had held all the horror of his failure.  Even as terrified as she was, Dawn had been able to feel the force of his love.  He would have protected her with his own life if he had been able.  He had already done it once before.

No, she couldn't have been wrong.

She turned to the second poem, a nameless one written in the same brown ink that she was still using for the fountain pen he had given her two summers ago.

 

_Strange little Niblet_

_Just barely a bite_

_Not yet a woman_

_But more than a mite_

_Chock-full of courage_

_For a chit so slight_

_Scorning the things that_

_Go bump in the night._

_Funny little Bit_

_With her coltish poise_

_Filling my crypt with_

_Such curious noise_

_Telling me freely_

_Of her fears and joys--_

_Scoobies and schoolwork_

_And pimply-faced boys._

_Rare little Pigeon_

_So saucy and smart,_

_Says just what she thinks,_

_No pretense or art._

_Brave little White Hat_

_Who upsets the cart_

_And conquers the walls_

_Of a vampire's heart._

_Lovers I have known_

_And dear mothers too._

_Yet this priceless Key_

_Opens something new:_

_Neither need nor want,_

_But affection true,_

_Chasing at the heels_

_Of friendship's debut._

The tears more flowed freely now.

It was strange that it had never occurred to Dawn when she had adopted him as her friend that she might have been the first.  But now that she thought about it, he had spent the first decades of his unlife with a family that had barely tolerated him.  And then after they disbanded, there had been no one but Drusilla.  It seemed like he had never really had a genuine, non-romantic friendship before she came along.  And even though he had made another friend since then, Dawn couldn't really picture Spike undergoing torture for Clem's sake.

Their friendship had been something special.

Her stomach clenched as she thought about what he had endured at Glory's hands.  How could the same vampire who had stubbornly refused to betray her to the hell god have tried to do something like _that_ to Buffy?  What could he possibly have been thinking?

Suddenly, Dawn stood up.  She had to know.  Now.

She tiptoed to the door and slipped out of her room as quietly as she could.  She glanced at Buffy's door.  It was shut, but that didn't always mean her sister was asleep.  There was no light coming through the cracks, however, so Dawn took that as a good sign.  She padded quietly down the stairs, skipping the bottom step that always creaked.

She paused for a moment at the bottom of the stairs, taking in the mess in the living room.  The two girls had done their best to clean up after Dawn's ghostly visitor, but there were still signs of destruction all over the house.  Whatever had been pretending to be Joyce had tried to convince her that Buffy was going to betray her.  But it hadn't counted on the strength of their relationship.  The sisters had come a long way since Buffy's resurrection.

Besides, once Dawn had gotten over her initial worries, she realized that her mom would never have tried to throw a wedge between her daughters.

It occurred to her that the mysterious Big Bad that had tried to play the two of them was probably also the one messing around with Spike's mind.  She hesitated.  If Spike had one of his trigger-fits in front of her, he could be dangerous.   But he was chained to the wall.  As long as she stayed out of his reach, she should be safe.

Renewing her resolve, she opened the door to the basement and headed down the stairs.  It was much darker and colder than she had been expecting, but the moonlight that had shone through her own curtains was also lighting the cot where he lay.  His face was turned to the wall, and his body had the perfect stillness of a dead thing.

She paused at the bottom of the basement stairs, unsure how she was going to wake him up without getting too close.  But it turned out not to be necessary.

"Come to make good on your threat, Niblet?"

She swallowed as he shifted on the cot, turning to face her.  The moonlight glinted on his pale hair, helping her eyes adjust to the added darkness.  There it was--that haunted look that never seemed to leave his face nowadays.  It reminded her of the summer when Buffy was dead.

She took a step closer.  "I-I just wanted to talk."

"Bit late for a heart-to-heart, innit?"

"It's the only time Buffy isn't around."

"I see."  

His voice had a guarded tone, as if he had interpreted her statement as another threat.  Dawn supposed she could understand why.  Buffy was his protector now.  Dawn's record of late had been sketchy at best.

She walked over to the edge of the room, pulling an old chair from the storage pile and setting it down several feet away from his cot.  It was just barely out of the limits of his chain's reach, but somehow the distance felt like a chasm.  It made something inside Dawn ache.

"I want to know why," she said quietly.

It occurred to her that it was a very broad statement, but she didn't bother to elaborate.  He knew what she was talking about.

He took a deep breath, closing his eyes.  

"Don't know if I can rightly answer that.  M'not sure myself," he said after several minutes' silence.

"Try."

He opened his eyes again.  "You hearing confession, Bit?  We might be here awhile."

"I've got all night."

He nodded.  "Suppose you do."

"Buffy..." Dawn hesitated.  "Buffy told me told me that she beat you up."

"Don't feel too sorry for me, Pigeon," he said wryly.  "Threw quite a few punches myself."

Dawn shook her head.  "No, I know.  I meant...she told me about the police station."

He looked at her blankly.

"What about it?"

"She told me...that she beat you up...and that you didn't fight back."  Dawn bit her lip.  "I think...I think she feels really guilty about it."

He blinked.

"She shouldn't," he said quietly, shifting a little.  "Your sis never did anything to me I didn't deserve."

Dawn wasn't sure how she felt about that.  Perhaps in the scheme of cosmic justice he was right.  He had killed a lot of people, after all.  But she knew Buffy didn't see it that way. Her sister had told her in so many words that she hadn't been punishing him for being a killer.  She had been punishing him for being a lover.

"So..." she asked him timidly.  "So...what you did...it wasn't...it wasn't about revenge?"

His eyebrows shot up.  He raised his head and looked her directly in the eye for the first time.

" _Never_."

Dawn blinked back tears.  "Then... _why?_ "

"Didn't mean to, Bit," he said heavily.  "Doesn't make it any better, I know.  But I didn't."

He stared up at the ceiling, twisting absently at his sheets.

"Went up there meaning to make things right.  Thought we still had a chance.  She seemed so upset about Xander's bird that...I thought there must've still been something there.  Then we started fighting and..."

He fell silent for a long time.  Dawn started to worry that she wouldn't get any more of the story.  She was about to prod him some more when he suddenly picked back up.

"The Slayer and I always ended our fights the same way last year," he continued. "Should've known it was different this time.  Could feel her struggling.  But it wasn't like normal.  I didn't know she was hurt.  Thought she could've thrown me around the whole bloody house if she'd wanted.  I thought...I thought she wasn't doing it because..." 

He closed his eyes a second time, his face contorting with shame and self-loathing.  

"...I thought it was because she didn't want to.  Thought I was finally getting _through_ to her.  That she was finally letting herself... _"_ He gave a bitter laugh.  "Wasn't until she kicked me that I saw her face.  That's when it finally clicked.  When I realized what I'd just done."

He opened his eyes and looked at her.

"I couldn't bear to look her in the eye," he told her.  "So I just ran like a bleeding coward.  Should've stayed there and let her stake me.  Should've let her deal with me however she wanted. But I didn't."

"And you got your soul back instead."

He gave her a pained look.

"S'what she wanted, wasn't it?  Kept going on and on 'bout how much a difference it made.  And I thought...afterward...that she must be right.  That if I got the spark back, it would be better.   _I_ would be better."  His eyes fell to the concrete floor.  "Bleeding idiot."

Dawn swallowed.  

"Don't-don't most of the people who do what you did have souls already?" she offered.

"Suppose so," he sighed.  "Maybe mine was just rotten all along.  Would explain a lot of things..."

Dawn bit her lip, not sure she wanted to know what sort of things he thought it explained.  She looked at him uncertainly, reaching for another explanation.

"Is it like what Angel says?" she asked.  "That you're a completely different person than you were before?"

He raised his head and looked her in the eye again.

"Would that make things better for you?" he asked, almost gently.

Dawn thought about it.  She had never really believed it before.  It had just seemed like an excuse Angel had come up with to be forgiven.  If he was right, then the vampire in front of her wasn't the same person who had assaulted Buffy.  

But then…he also wasn't the person who had suffered Glory's torture...or tried to save her on the tower...or taken care of her when everyone else was too busy with their own grief.  He wasn't the person who had once been her friend.

"No," she whispered at last.  "It wouldn't."

He nodded.

"Don't think it's true, anyway," he said, looking up at the ceiling again.  "I feel different now.  But not that different."

"I guess not.  You don't seem like another person," she admitted.  "I don't think Buffy believes that anymore either."

His mouth twisted into a bitter smile.  "'Bout bloody time."

They were quiet for several minutes.  Dawn struggled to absorb what he had told her. Finally, she asked the question that had been weighing on her all night long.

"Are you sorry?"

He laughed again, a hollow sound that evaporated into the darkness.

"Nearly a million words in the Queen's bloody English and she asks if I'm _sorry_ ," he muttered.  "S'not really big enough, is it?"

Dawn supposed not.  She knew what he meant.  You said sorry when you snapped at someone.  Or when you spilled something down another person's shirt.  It seemed weird that the word you used for things that didn't really matter was the same one you used when they really did.

She fell silent for several more minutes, not knowing what to say.  Then, his voice came back so softly that she barely caught it.

_"Yes."_

The word had been more breathed than spoken. She stared at him, and he met her eye.

She swallowed.  

"Buffy...Buffy wants me to forgive you."

He shook his head.

"Can't ask that of you, Bit.  Wouldn't be right.  I know what I am, what I've done.  I don't deserve it."

Dawn looked down at her lap, staring at her fingers.  She heard him shuffle his sheets. 

"C'mere, Dawn," he said softly.

She looked up.  He was sitting upright now, holding out his hand.  His fingers were closed around something small.  Dawn hesitated, wondering if it was some kind of trick.  Had he been triggered?

But the steady look in his eyes convinced her that he was still himself.  She edged a bit closer, and reached for whatever he was holding.  He dropped something cold and hard into her hand and then laid back down.

Dawn's stomach lurched.  

It was his lighter.

She looked back at him and watched in horrified fascination as she saw the musculature of his face shift.  The bridge of his nose elongated to join the ridges around his eyebrows and forehead.  His mouth was closed but she could see his jaw twitch as his fangs lowered inside it.

But the expression in his amber eyes held no hint of threat.  They stared at her with the same sadness she had seen in his blue ones.

Dawn glanced back down at the lighter he had given her, and suddenly understood what he was doing.  What he meant for her to do.

She stood up abruptly, knocking over her chair.  The vampire on the cot watched her with patient expectation.

She ran.

Dawn fled up the basement stairs, her heart pounding as she threw open the door and darted through the ground floor.  She didn't know what she was doing, but she knew she had to get away.  Away from his pain...from his contrition...from his...his... _permission_.  

That's what Buffy had called it.

She rounded the corner of the dining room and ran straight into her sister.

"What the hell--"

Buffy straightened, holding her sister at arms-length.  "Dawnie?  What's going on? Why are you up so late?"

Dawn was hyperventilating and didn't answer.  She saw Buffy take in her wide eyes and tear-streaked face.  Then her sister's eyes fell on the lighter she was still holding in her hand.

Buffy took a step back in shock.  "Dawnie..." she breathed.

Dawn glanced up at her.  Her sister tightened her grip on her arms and gave her a terrified shake.

"Dawnie!  What-what happened?" Buffy's eyes were wild with fear.   _"What did you do?"_

"No-nothing," she gasped.  "I didn't--I couldn't--"

Buffy slumped against the wall in relief.  She closed her eyes.  

"Oh, God," she said weakly. "I thought..."

Dawn swallowed.

"I know," she said.  She held the lighter loosely in her hand.  "I think...I think he wanted me to do it."

Buffy glanced up a her with dull eyes.

"Do you?"

Dawn trembled.  

"No," she whispered, aware for the first time that it was true.  "I don't want to hurt him."  She paused.  "I want to help him."

Buffy's face crumpled.  She held out her arms and they hugged each other tightly.

"Me too, Dawnie," Buffy whispered over her shoulder.  "Me too.  I just don't know how."

Dawn pulled back, an idea taking shape in her head.  She looked at her sister.

"I think I do."

 

**********

 

Spike lay on his cot, staring at the chair that Dawn had overturned during her hasty exit.  Somehow, the blackness seemed heavier now that she had left, taking her innocence with her.  He could feel the air grow colder and the feeling of pressure on his chest increased.  It had been over a century since he had needed oxygen, but the long-forgotten sensation of suffocation hit him like a brick wall.

He had learned to recognize the warning signs.

 _It_ was here.

Spike pulled at his chains, hoping against hope that they would be strong enough to hold him if It decided to press whatever damn button turned him into a killer again.  He should never have come back to the Summers household.  He was putting the girls he cared about in danger.  Again.

Why didn't he have the courage to walk into the bleeding sunshine and end it all?

The shadows took form, dancing across the basement floor.  It was Drusilla, dressed in black lace and looking like sin itself.  He eyed the twirling figure warily.  He knew she was just a facade.  It never managed to capture the innocent parts of her.  It only knew her cruelty.

And yet It still managed to hurt him.

It danced closer, whispering to him seductively. _"Naughty, wicked Spike, talking to the sweet little girlie."_  It got right up in his face, licking Drusilla's lips lasciviously.   _"Makes poor Dru's tummy rumble.  Won't you kill her for princess, Spike?"_

He closed his eyes, refusing to play along.

 _"Now, now, boyo, don't be like that."_  He opened his eyes again and stared dully as Angelus smirked down at him.  At least It managed to get that face correct.

"You're not him," he told it without conviction.

Its smile got wider. _"Oh, but you are, aren't you, boyo?  What?  Did you think your precious soul would make a difference?  It didn't for me--not really now, did it?  And what are you but my copy?"_

It leaned down and grinned at him. 

_"Drusilla sired you because she couldn't have me.  She looked into your heart and saw the same blackness she loved so much in mine."_  

Spike closed his eyes as the dagger hit its mark.  He tried to protest.  "That's not what she said."

 _"Oh Spike,"_ It laughed.   _"Don't you know you can't trust what a girl like Dru says?  After all, she pretended to love you for all those years when you know she was thinking of me the whole time.  Why else would she leave you so quickly?  Daddy was back."_

It stood up and sauntered across the room, leaning casually against a concrete pillar.

 _"Buffy too,"_ It said with a smile. _"She told you that herself, didn't she?  She never really wanted you.  She only ever loved one vampire.  You were just convenient."_

Spike glared at It.  "You think I don't know that?"

Angelus' face twisted with glee.  

 _"The only thing she wanted from you was violence.  But you know that too, don't you?"_ It approached the cot a second time.   _"She wanted you mean and evil, didn't she?  Know why?"_

Its features shifted and suddenly he was staring at an elderly woman.  His mother crooned at him in a way that made his stomach revolt.

 _"Because that what you are, my William,"_ It laughed. _"That's what you will always be.  You came out my womb that way.  Why do you think I said the things I did?  I knew what you were back then."_

Spike closed his eyes again, sickened.  

"It's not true," he managed to gasp.  "I was a good man once."

It shifted forms again and suddenly the Slayer was standing over him.

 _"Oh were you?"_ It laughed again mockingly. _"Then tell me--why weren't you ever good enough for a woman?"_

It flipped Buffy's golden hair haughtily.   

 _"Poor Spike!  Always beneath them.  No one ever loved you, did they?  Not Cecily.  Not Dru.  Not me."_  Her eyes glinted maliciously. _"And who could blame us?  You're just not loveable.  Soul or no soul, you'll never measure up.  You can’t change."_

Spike swallowed.  "She doesn't believe that.  I wouldn't be here if she did.  She's taken me back in, given me a second chance..."

The features shifted one last time.  The jaw widened and the hair grew a few shades paler.  Green eyes melted into blue ones, and suddenly Spike was staring at the face he hated most.

His own image perched itself on the edge of his cot and leaned in to whisper in his ear.

_"She shouldn't."_

He groaned, knowing It had him.

_"You're going to betray her, tear out her throat like an animal.  And then you're going to drain that sweet little Bit dry."_

"No!" he whimpered.  "I won't."

 _"Yes, you will.  You killed the others, didn't you?"_  

"That was you!  I couldn't help..."

 _"No you couldn't.  Know why?"_  It twisted his features into a cruel smile. _"'Cause you belong to me.  You're naught but an evil thing, and you--"_

Suddenly, a light broke through from above him.  The specter dissolved, although Spike could still feel its presence.  The familiar scent of the Summers sisters filled his nostrils.  That was something the shadow couldn't imitate.

He turned on his cot and watched the Summers girls descend into his darkness, warm and alive and real.  They had a resolved air about them, and Spike wondered if his Niblet had decided to end him after all.  Maybe she just felt she needed her sister's help.

There was a small clicking sound, and suddenly Dawn's face was illuminated by the tiny flame of his lighter.

So she had decided to come back for him.  

Spike found himself overwhelmed by a cold and empty peace.  This was it.  He knew where he was going.  He knew he had to be punished, that the small flame she held in her hand would fade into the ones that never ended.

But it was better this way.  He couldn't hurt anyone else he cared about in hell.

Buffy walked over to the upturned chair and righted it.  Dawn sat down, glancing up at her sister.

"Where should I start?" she asked.

"Start at the beginning," the Slayer answered.  "Just her stuff for now."

Dawn nodded.  Buffy left her side and approached his cot.  She had a blanket tucked under her arm.  Spike looked from sister to sister in confusion.  What was going on?  What were they talking about? Was the blanket to cover his face so Dawn didn't have to see him burn?

The Slayer unfolded the blanket and draped it over his shoulders.  He saw that it was one of Joyce's quilts.  There was no way the girls would burn one of those.

"Buffy?" he whispered.

"Shhh," she said softly.  She looked over at her sister.  "Go ahead, Dawnie."

Dawn held the lighter up to something small and thin.  With a jolt, Spike realized it was his poetry book.  She opened it and began to read in a soft voice.

 

_I thought once how Theocritus had sung_

_Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years,_

_Who each one in a gracious hand appears_

_To bear a gift for mortals, old or young:_

 

Spike's eyes widened.   He looked at Buffy in shock.  She smiled at him, reaching out a hand.

He shook his head violently.  "No...Buffy...s'not right..."

_Mustn't touch...just a foul, unclean thing...beneath you...belong to the darkness...just an evil thing...mustn't touch me..._

Her fingers brushed his cheek.

"It's okay," she whispered, stroking gently.  "You're gonna be okay."

Dawn continued reading, her reedy voice gaining confidence as she progressed.

 

_And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,_

_I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,_

_The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,_

_Those of my own life, who by turns had flung_

_A shadow across me. Straightway I was 'ware,_

_So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move_

_Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair;_

_And a voice said in mastery, while I strove, ---_

_'Guess now who holds thee?' --- 'Death,' I said. But, there,_

_The silver answer rang, --- 'Not Death, but Love.'_

 

At the last line, Spike met Buffy's eyes.  The expression in them was softer than any she had ever directed his way.

He felt like he should say something.

"Buffy...I..." he started, but the words wouldn't come.

She smiled and shook her head.  "Don't interrupt the reader," she said teasingly, as Dawn turned the page to the second sonnet.  "Just rest."

The Slayer reached inside her robe and pulled out a tiny copper key.  A few second later, there was a small click as the shackles holding him to the wall fell off his wrists.  Buffy leaned down and placed a small, chaste kiss on his forehead.

The vampire's defenses broke.

 

**********

 

The thing of darkness cursed him from the window.  When the sisters had first entered the basement, It had waited cautiously to see what would unfold.  But the moment that the girl had started reading, It had let loose a silent scream of pain.  The agony had just grown worse as the Slayer and the teenager comforted the vampire.

It wasn't fair.  It owned him.   _They_ didn't have any right.

But the glow in the room was overwhelming, and the darkness couldn't bear it any longer.  It fled out the window, vowing to return for its rightful property another night.  

This war was not over.

 

**********

 

Inside the basement of Revello Drive, however, the battle had been won.  

Spike basked in the presence of the two most important women in his life. He had never been able to resist even the smallest crumb of affection when it was tossed his way.  But he had never dreamed of something like this night.  It filled him with wonder.

Was it just his imagination, or was the darkness growing lighter?  It couldn't just be the light from Dawn’s flame.  It was just a tiny thing. 

Forgiveness washed over him like cold spring water, sweeping away the darkness of just a few moments earlier.  He tried for a moment to recall the despairing peace he had felt when the flame had first flickered on, but that oppressive feeling had flown far beyond recall.  In its place was a warm, bubbly feeling that reminded him faintly of Joyce's hot cocoa.

For the first time since he had returned to Sunnydale, a smile broke the corner of Spike's mouth.  He curled up so that his head lay on his Slayer's lap, and she held him while his Niblet read on.

And his heart swelled with a different sort of peace as he surrendered to their love and mercy.  


	14. Remembrances

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for the delay in updating. I was hoping to get this chapter online before my big flight on Friday, but it didn't happen. Today is the first day I've had the time and Internet to post.
> 
> Some lines taken from School Hard.

May 2003

It was uncharacteristically quiet at 1630 Revello Drive.  Buffy lay on a cot in the basement, contemplating the silence.  It had taken several hours for the shuffling of feet upstairs to quiet as her sister, her friends, and the Potentials all drifted off to sleep.  She wasn't surprised.  Tomorrow was a nerve-wracking day and they were all frightened.  Even if they survived the battle that was coming, their lives were about to change forever.

Her life was about to change as well.  

For so long, it had been the same story.  She was the Chosen One, the sole bearer of an unimaginable burden, the world perpetually on her shoulders.  Even when her sister-Slayers had come along, the heavy weight of responsibility had never stopped being hers.  Kendra had not been experienced, and Faith...well...Faith was _Faith._   Until now, she had only added to Buffy's burdens rather than relieve them.

Even death had only given her a temporary break from it all.

Buffy wondered if she was going to die tomorrow.  There was a high chance of it, given how ambitious their plans were.  A long time ago, the thought would have frightened her.  Much more recently, she might have yearned for the final end.  Now she found herself at peace with both outcomes, preferring to live but unafraid to die.

Part of the peace came from knowing that they would win.  She couldn't remember the last time she had felt so confident about an apocalypse.  Even if she died in the battle tomorrow, things would be alright.  The Sunnydale Hellmouth would be closed and the First would be defeated.  No one would need to steal her away from her eternal rest because the world would have more than enough Slayers to go around.  

And she knew that Dawn would be safe.  It wouldn't be fair to her, having to lose her sister all over again.  But she could survive it.  The Scoobies wouldn't make the same mistakes they did before, and Dawn would always have Spike looking out for her.

Buffy shifted on her cot, snuggling close into the cool arms that were draped over her midsection.

He was the other reason she knew it would be alright.  

Buffy's eyes flitted across his sleeping face.  She thought she had never seen anything more peaceful, and it was both intoxicating and contagious.  Once upon a time she would have thought that a peaceful Spike was a contradiction in terms.  Usually he was such a restless bundle of untapped energy.  She wondered if he had always been capable of such stillness or if this was something the soul had done.

_Maybe neither_ , she thought.  After all, they had been through so much together.  Maybe their shared peace was just the result of years spent hating and trusting and loving and hate-loving each other till they were both too tired to do anything but rest. 

_"Can we rest, now, Buffy?" he asked as the smell of sweet-burning flesh filled the church._  

_Not yet,_ she answered him mentally, _but soon._

He was one of the main reasons she wanted to live.  

She didn't know what it was, this connection that drove her to the basement every night.  It was completely unlike their connection the previous year.  That had been all pain and turmoil and guilt.  Now the pain and the turmoil were manageable, and the guilt was all on his part.  

But even he seemed to be doing better.  

The guilt was still there, just as much a part of him now as the scar on his eyebrow.  But it no longer overwhelmed him the way it had when he'd first returned. Buffy wasn't sure when exactly things had shifted for him.  Had it been that night at the church?  Or was it Dawn's poetry reading?  Perhaps it had been when she had finally found him in the First's cave, tortured and broken but still whispering his faith in her like a mantra.  Maybe it had been when he'd gotten his coat back, or in that room full of crosses where he'd finally confronted the pain in his past and shattered the power the darkness held over him.

Or maybe all those moments had been steps on the ladder leading him out of the abyss.

Of course, even this newfound peace hadn't changed everything.  Buffy was glad of that.  When she had first found out about the soul, she had been slightly nervous.  Part of her had wondered if he was going to take Angel's line and act like he wasn't the same person who had fled her bathroom last spring.  But he hadn't, and Buffy felt guilty for doubting him.  She should have known that he would never allow himself such an easy way out.

She had also been a bit worried that the guilt would ruin his taste for the fight.  For some time, it had seemed like maybe it had.  For several months, he hadn't shown the edge he once boasted, that thrill at landing a killing blow without hesitation or regret.  Buffy understood, of course, that he didn't trust himself anymore.  But it had still frustrated her to no end.  

Because, she had realized in a moment of galling honesty, she missed that part of him.  She would never have admitted it before this year, but his boyish excitement about a good fight had been one of the things she loved most about him.  It was the first connection they had made, even when they were actively trying to kill each other.

 

_"Do we really need weapons for this?"_

_Buffy wasn't quite sure what made her say it.  This was supposed to be a fight to the death.  Surely having a weapon on her was of the good?_

_He leered and ran a suggestive hand down his midsection._

_"I just like them.  They make me feel all manly."_

_She fought the impulse to roll her eyes._

_But then he tossed the pole aside.  Surprised, she dropped her own axe.  She had no idea how she was going to kill such an experienced opponent without it, but somehow it felt like the right thing to do._

_The slayer of her kind sauntered over to her, a smirk on his face.  He seemed pleased at her suggestion, and Buffy couldn't tell if it was because she was now easier to kill or if she had just managed to earn his respect._

_"The last Slayer I killed...she begged for her life," he boasted._

_It should have appalled her, but somehow, she got the feeling that bragging was just part of the game for this one, much like puns were for her.  She moved toward him, her chin set in defiance._

_Apparently, he appreciated her attitude._

_"You don't seem like the begging type," he drawled in amusement._

_Buffy tried not to let herself be flattered by his comment.  She clasped her hands behind her and inched closer, hoping the stance came off as calm rather than coquettish._

_"You shouldn't have come here," she told him._

_"No, I messed up your doilies and stuff.  But I just got so bored!"_

_He laughed.  Buffy managed to keep her features composed, but a teensy-tiny part of her also wanted to giggle at his eagerness.  The Slayer in her understood the restless itch._

_"Tell you what," he continued, all cocky smile and exuberance, "as a personal favor from me to you, I'll make it quick.  It won't hurt a bit."_

_She was pleased by the verbal opening he'd given her, and matched his boast with one of her own._  

_"No, Spike," she responded coolly.  "It's gonna hurt a lot."_

 

She'd fought more powerful beings since then, but she had never found anyone who'd made it as fun as he had.  For a while, she had thought that spark had been lost forever, squelched by the one he had won for himself in Africa.  But she had managed to goad it back into him.  It had hurt them both a little to do it, but she was grateful she had succeeded...and not just because she needed a good warrior at her side.  

Buffy turned her head to glance at the coat that was folded over the stair bannister.  He'd told her its history, but that no longer disturbed her.  Its presence was like an old friend, reassuring her that soul or no soul, Spike was still Spike.

_Still likes fighting Slayers too,_ she mused, remembering the uproar of a few nights ago.  The tension between Buffy and the people she was supposed to be leading had come to a head, and she had found herself kicked out of her own home.  She had been too depressed to defend herself against the friendly fire, and had wandered into an abandoned house a few blocks away.  

Spike and Dawn had been gone at the time, away on a reconnaissance mission.  When they had returned to find Buffy ousted from Revello Drive, they had gone into full-scale attack mode.  She'd mostly forgiven her friends for what they'd done, but a slightly vindictive part of her still wished she had been there to see the confrontation, especially the part when Spike had punched Faith.  Dawn had been sure to give her a blow-for-blow account of it when they'd caught up with her.

But after her sister had gone to bed, Buffy had found herself needing the quiet part of him again.  And he had obliged, holding her the entire night.  

There hadn't been any heat in his embrace.  Just peace and... and...she didn't quite know what to call it.  This thing they had shared for the better part of a year was something new.  And good.  It wasn't the drama and heartbreak of loving Angel.  It wasn't the by-the-book dating experiment she'd had with Riley.  And it certainly wasn't the torrid rush of danger and guilt from the year before.

So what was it?  Friendship?  Romance?  Or something else entirely?

Cold comfort, he'd called it.  Cold comfort from the cellar dweller.

He'd said it in a tone of self-mockery, but it was as good a term as any for what they had.  Snuggling into his arms on this tiny cot had all relaxation of slipping into a pair of old pajamas and turning on the television.  She wasn't sure if it was love yet--at least not in the romantic sense--but there was something about his sheer familiarity that she found she needed far more than any bedroom thrills.  Buffy wondered what it would be like to build a relationship on something like this.

Perhaps if she survived tomorrow she could find out.  Perhaps they could finally have that long talk that they both needed, that talk about what their actions meant that she should have allowed the moment they had first kissed last year.  She didn't want to make the same mistake twice.

But she couldn't have it now, with the apocalypse hanging over their heads.  It wouldn't be fair to give him false hope right before she died again.  It was better if he got a chance to grieve and heal without feeling like a future had been ripped away from him.  Buffy had no memory of Angel coming back from the Oracles to announce what he had decided for them both.  But his description of how she had reacted had disturbed her.  She couldn't do that to Spike.

She worried her bottom lip.

It could be her last night, though.  There was so much they hadn't said, so much she still wondered about.  If she died tomorrow, she wondered, would she regret the conversations they hadn't had?  Was there anything they could say to one another that wouldn't make that outcome more painful for him?

As she snuggled closer, she felt the sharp corner of a hardback meet her hand.  They'd been keeping the poetry book under his pillow since the night that Dawn had read to him.  Suddenly, she realized she had her answer.  They had shared Browning's words frequently over the past year.  But she had never had the courage to ask him about his own.

Still, Buffy hesitated.  

He looked so calm, the moonlight shining down on him through the curtain.  The practical side of her said it was better to let him rest before the battle.  And the compassionate side of her didn't want to interrupt the peace that stole over him in their quiet moments.

She pulled away slightly, and he nuzzled closer.  Buffy wondered if his subconscious was worried that she was about to take off, like she had done so many countless mornings.  Any other man would have told her off the very first time it had happened.  But not him.  He had forgiven every time she had taken what she needed without giving anything in return.

Buffy wondered if he would forgive her one last bit of selfishness.  She shifted her arm free of his and gave his shoulder a small shake.

 

**********

 

Spike felt the soft hand on his shoulder and opened his eyes.  A pair of emerald ones stared back at him, and his heart swelled.  She was still here, his golden girl.

"S'matter, luv?" he asked.  Even if it hadn't been so dark in the basement, his vamp senses were telling him that morning was still several hours away.  "Can't sleep?"

"Sorry," she whispered, shaking her head.  "My brain's too full."

"Not worried 'bout tomorrow, are you?"  He pulled closer, slipping his arm beneath her body and rubbing her back.  "You know we got this.  S'gonna be alright, yeah?"

"I know," she said.  "I wasn't even thinking about that.  I was just...remembering."

He flicked a strand of hair away from her face.

"Bad memories or good ones?"

"Good.  Or well," she smiled wryly, "both, I guess.  I didn't really think some of them were good when they happened."

He shifted his body and tilted his head curiously.  She seemed to be in a strange mood.

"How's that?"

She leaned forward conspiratorially.  "I was just thinking about the first night we fought."

He grinned down at her.  "That one counts as a good memory in my book."

She gave him a glare of mock outrage.

"You wrecked my party!"

"Just gave you a better one, pet."

That brought a smile to her face.  "Yeah, I guess you did."

"Strange, innit?" Spike mused.  "Tomorrow we'll be right back where we started.  Trashing the high school."  He gave her a sly look.  "Think the First'll bring doilies and lemonade?"

Buffy groaned.

"I'd forgotten about my lemonade!" she said.  "I really shouldn't be allowed to organize anything.  Like, ever again."

"I dunno.  I rather liked it."  

She gave him a look, and Spike realized he'd been caught.

"I swiped a cup on my way out," he admitted.

Buffy looked at him in disbelief.  "You did not."

"Did too," he insisted.  "After you and your mum and all the other humans left, I snuck back in and poured myself a cup.  It was good."

"Liar!"  She smacked him on the shoulder.  "If you'd tasted any of it, you'd know I forgot to add sugar."

"And here I'd thought you left it out on purpose," he smirked.  "Thought you drank it that way, straight up.  Seemed to suit you."

She snickered at that.  "Says the guy who mixes Wheetabix into his blood."

"No one ever accused my tastes of being normal, luv."

Buffy laughed again.  

"That's the understatement of the century," she teased.  "I should've known as soon as I found out you were dating Drusilla."

Spike felt a slight pang at the mention of her name.  It had been years since his ripe wicked plum had haunted his sleep.  

Buffy looked up at him.

"Do you still miss her?" she asked quietly.

Spike traced the outline of her jaw as he considered her question.  He was basking in sunshine now and there was no going back to the shadows.  But at the same time, Drusilla would always be his sire, the goddess he had served for over a century, and Spike never forgot any woman who had held his heart.

"Yes," he said after a moment, "I s'pect after so long it would be impossible not to.  But it's a different kind of love now."

Buffy bit her lower lip.

"You know I can't really bring myself to like her," she admitted.  "Not after Kendra."

"I know that, luv," he said quickly, worried she had gotten the wrong impression.  "I didn't mean--"

Buffy shushed him before he could launch into an awkward apology.

"That wasn't a trap," she said gently.  "You've got a right to care about your ex, even if she is a crazy murderer."

Spike frowned.  The Jamaican bint Dru had killed hadn't made much of an impression on him, but she had been important to Buffy at the time.

"I know she killed your friend," he said quietly.

Buffy gave a small sigh.

"I didn't really know her all that well," she said.  "It was more what she represented than anything else."

Spike nodded.  Discovering someone who could share her burden would have been a huge relief for his ironclad Slayer.  Having her ripped away after such a short time couldn't have been easy.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, and meant it.

"You didn't do it," she said.  "And I guess I can't blame you for loving the woman who did.  After all, I dated Angel and he killed my Watcher's girlfriend."

"And you still love him," he said with a resigned sigh.

"No."

That got his attention.  Spike sat up and stared at her for a long moment.  Buffy didn't blink as he examined her face.

"You mean that," he breathed at last.  He felt light, like a bubble had formed inside him.

"Of course I do.  You think I'd still want him after I found out about the book?"

He lay back down.

"I just thought...I mean Dawn told me you had just gotten back from LA when I..."

Buffy slipped her arms around him.  "I went to LA to tell him off.  Even punched him a few times."

Spike lifted his eyebrows incredulously.

"Did you really?" he asked.  She nodded, and he felt his widest grin in years pop onto his face.  "I'm sorry I missed that, luv.  I really am.  Would give my right arm to see you schooling the great git."

She smirked wickedly.  "I also told him I would stake him if he showed his face in Sunnydale again."

He laughed in delight.

"That why the other Watcher bloke delivered the amulet the other day?"

She nodded.  Spike gave a sigh of contentment.

"You really are a hell of a woman," he said, repeating his words from the other night.

Buffy smiled proudly.  

"I knew you'd get a kick out of that."  Her face grew serious.  "It was as much for you as it was for me," she added quietly.  "I couldn't let him get away with stealing your poems."

Wonder filled his chest.

"'Preciate that more than you could know, pet," he said.  "But they're not worth all that."

"They were to me," she whispered.

Spike didn't quite know how to respond.  Clearly, they _had_ meant something to her.  He'd seen the way she obsessed over the book.  But he'd assumed that her attachment was only because she had thought the poems inside were from Angel.  It would never have occurred to him that they would ever reach a point when the truth wouldn't make her hate him even more.

He felt her draw closer uncertainly and realized he had been silent for too long.  He circled his arms around her again and kissed the top of her head.

"Thank you," he said softly.

"Spike..."

He looked down at her.  He knew that tone of voice.  She'd finally built up the courage to get to the heart of whatever was keeping her awake.  A small part of him was screaming to go into defense mode.  Honesty tended to leave them both bleeding.

But he shoved those thoughts away.  He owed it to Buffy to have whatever conversation she needed.

"What it is, luv?"  

"Did you ever read any of your poems to Drusilla?"

Spike wasn't sure what question he had been expecting, but that definitely hadn't been it.  He had been steeling himself for another conversation about the bathroom or the soul or Angel or any of the dozens of fights they had been through.  It was rare for Buffy to ask about his life before he'd met her, and until this year she had never asked about anything that really mattered.

"Versions of them," he admitted.  "Generally edited them a bit more before I shared, though."

"Did she like them?"

He felt the corners of his mouth twitch.  

"She used to dance to them," he said, feeling a nostalgic sort of tenderness.  "And if she liked a turn of phrase, she'd repeat it for months on end till I got so sodding sick of my own words.  Drove me up the bloody wall."

Buffy grinned.  "But it didn't stop you from writing."

"Yeah, well, I s'pose it felt nice.  No one but me mum ever liked 'em before."  He paused, then added ruefully, "Guess it doesn't say much that the only other lass who did was off her rocker."

"I like them too!"

He smirked at her.  "Still true then."

She gave him another playful smack.  Then she snuggled closer.

"Tell me more."

"Not much to tell, really," he said with a nonchalant shrug.  "Always been a bit of a romantic ponce and Dru just let me.  S'long as I was still a killer, she didn't mind being pampered on the side.  Took to it real natural, in fact."

"Did you really give her rubies and sapphires and all those things from your poem?  The one about wooing her?"

"Of course.  Convenient thing about being evil is you never bother to pay for anything.  Doesn't leave many excuses for not giving your girl the best."

"That's insane vampire logic," Buffy told him in an amused voice.

"Prob'ly right about that," he admitted.  "But it made sense to me at the time."

Buffy frowned.  "Didn't all that stuff make it hard to travel, though?  I mean, even small things add up, and I kind of got the impression the two of you were always on the move."

Spike sighed.  "Yeah, well, Dru never kept the gifts for long.  That comb in the poem you mentioned..."

"...the one all silver-sheen?" she asked slyly.  He nodded.  

"...gave it to her for our anniversary.  Two weeks later she threw it in the Mediterranean to appease the sea-pixies."

That sent her into a fit of giggles.  Spike raised an eyebrow, but soon found himself laughing as well.  It felt good, being able to put a smile on her face.  There had a been a time when it hadn't been easy to do.

"Trouble with Dru was that you never knew why she was doing stuff like that," he continued.  "Whether it actually had something to do with her Sight or if she just didn't like the gift."

"You poor thing," she teased.  Then, with a mock stern voice, she added, "That's what you get for dating a crazy lady."

Spike smiled in return.  "Duly noted."  

He shifted on the cot and stared at the ceiling.  

"She wasn't always like that," he confided.  "And even when she was, it wasn't always bad.  Dru had this way of putting things...the way she talked, all singsong and mysterious...well, it was sort of like poetry in a way."  He paused.  "Tried to capture it a couple of times..."

Buffy's eyes widened.  "You mean like in the Bad Dog poem?"

"Wh-what?" Spike was startled.  "How did you know...?"

She flushed a lovely shade of pink.  He could feel her heartbeat increase slightly in embarrassment.

"You..um..left it folded up in the book.  Angel probably never even saw it when he gave it to me."

_Thank goodness for small mercies,_ he thought, remembering how his sire had taken the book.  There would have been no end to the torment if he'd found that poem.

He cleared his throat, equally embarrassed.  "Oh.  Well...yeah, that was one attempt..."

"I should have known.  It didn't sound like anything Angel would write."

Spike snorted.  "Not one for playing around much, is he?  Not unless there's someone to torture."

Buffy shuddered and he kicked himself.  The last thing the girl needed was a reminder of what her ex had done to her Watcher.

"Sorry, pet," he whispered, stroking her hair.  "Didn't mean to raise bad memories."

"No, it's okay," she said reassuringly.  "Besides, you're right.  He wasn't really playful.  And...he wasn't nearly as romantic as I used to think..."

Buffy was silent for several minutes.  Spike could hear her heart pounding.  He rubbed her back in a circular motion, trying to soothe her.

Finally, she spoke again, her voice tight and low.  "The last poem...it was my favorite."

"The makeup one?"

She nodded.  Spike ran his fingers through her golden hair as she licked her lips nervously. He could feel her struggle.  There was a confession coming out and it was causing her pain.

Buffy took a deep breath.  "I thought...I thought it was something Angel had daydreamed about doing...you know, with me...and...and I spent all these years wishing he had...

Spike drew her closer, wishing he knew how to comfort her.

"...and then when I found out the truth, I was so glad it had never happened...but when I went to LA, Angel said...he said there was a day I didn't remember...a day that never happened..."

He shifted.  "Not sure I'm following you there, luv."

"It was this long story," she said.  "He turned into a human for a day and I was there...and well, since there wasn't any curse to worry about..."

Spike grimaced.  "I get the picture."

"Anyway...apparently I _did_ ask him to do the makeup thing...but then he asked the Powers That Be to take back the whole day so that him turning human never happened and he would be the only one to remember it all.  He said it was because I needed him to be a vampire so he could help me win some sort of big battle."

"Stupid git.  Hasn't exactly shown up anytime he could've been useful, has he?"

She snorted.  

"That's what I told him.  I was more angry than anything.  But since then...I started thinking about what he'd said about doing my makeup and..." She paused, her face flushed with shame. "...and _God,_ how could I have been so stupid?"

"Buffy..."

"...I mean, part of me wishes I could remember the whole thing because surely it wasn't as embarrassing as it is in my head, but then the other part of me is glad I don't remember because what if it actually was and I was acting all..."

"Buffy!"  He gave her a small shake.  "Listen to me. _You_ don't have any cause to be ashamed.  If a bloke gives his girl a book with poems written in the margins, she's got every right in the world to assume they came from him.  S'his own bloody fault for setting you up like that, yeah?"

She gave him a watery smile.  

"You know, I don't think he even knew about that poem.  I doubt he even read through to the end before giving it to me."

Spike made a noncommittal noise, remembering Angelus' cruel recital of his poetry before he retreated to the master bedroom to share it with his stolen lover.  His grandsire had almost certainly read the makeup poem, though it wouldn't surprise him if the great poof had forgotten all about it.  

"Even if he didn't, it was still his fault," he told Buffy gently.  "He saw me doing Dru's makeup often enough to figure it out.  He should have come clean with you right then."

She buried her face into the crook of his neck.  "You did it for her a lot?" she asked in a muffled voice.

He stroked her hair softly.  

"Sort of had to.  Dru didn't really like to get dressed.  She liked _being_  dressed, but she hated getting there.  Had to make it into something special or else she'd pitch a fit."  

"So it was just about pleasing her?"

"No," he said reluctantly, realizing what she was asking.  "I liked doing it."

Buffy pulled her face away and looked up at him.  "Of course you did," she whispered.  "You like the sweet stuff."

Spike raised an eyebrow.  "I like the not-so-sweet stuff too," he drawled.  "Still a vampire, luv."

She tried to smile but it didn't quite reach her eyes.

"But your poems for Drusilla...they were all happy," she said quietly.  "...and the ones in the crypt...the ones about _me_...most of them were not."

Her lower lip trembled and she lowered her eyes shamefully.  Spike felt a familiar ache in his chest.  He pulled her closer.

"None of that now, pet," he said sternly, looking her full in the face.  "That wasn't your fault, either."

"But it was," she insisted.  "The way I--"

He shook his head, cutting her off.  "You were going through a rough patch and for damn good reasons.  And I wasn't helping any."

Buffy reached up to stroke his cheek lightly.  "You were trying to," she whispered.  "You were practically the only one who was."

He sighed.  "Made a royal muck of it, didn't I?"

"We both did."  She snuggled closer.  "Is that why you never said anything about the book?" She asked.  "Dawn said you thought it wasn't the right time."

"Didn't think you needed to have the rug pulled from under you again.  Had enough to deal with at the time, didn't you?  And I suppose..." He closed his eyes, willing himself to be honest with her. “…I suppose part of me liked the idea that you were turning to something I'd written without knowing it."

Buffy looked at him curiously.  Spike hesitated, choosing his words with care.

"I-I knew you didn't want me making like I was your beau or anything," he said softly.  "Knew you were ashamed of m--of what we were doing.  But you were hurting...and I knew you didn’t want me to...I mean, I kept bollocksing up every time I tried to help you...but when I saw you reading the book...it felt like a way I could..."

He stopped himself, unsure if it was wise to continue.

"You thought you could sneak a little of the sweet in," Buffy frowned.

Spike lowered his head.  "S'pose so."

Buffy placed her hand beneath his chin and lifted.  "I was an idiot for not wanting the sweet," she said quietly.  She smiled sadly.  "Drusilla was a lucky girl."

His heart swelled.  "S'not exactly _sweet_  or anything, but for what it's worth, one of the poems in the book actually was about you."

She tilted her head in unconscious imitation of him.  Her eyes brightened.

"Yin and yang?" she guessed.  

He nodded.  

"Wrote it not long after our first fight," he said, recalling fondly the bruises she and her mother had given him that night.  He gave her a wicked grin.  "Made quite an impression on a poor old vamp.  Thought I'd seen everything till I met you."

The pleased pink returned to her cheeks.  She snuggled into his side.

"So who's yin and who's yang?"

He smiled.  "S'beauty of poetry, innit?  Depends on which way you're looking at it."

"Works for me," she said happily.

The two of them were silent for a long time.  

 

**********

 

Spike watched as his Slayer's eyelids drooped.  He could feel her heartbeat slow into a more rhythmic pace.  She wasn't there yet, but she was starting to drift off to sleep.

God, he was a lucky bloke.

When he had first come crashing back into Sunnydale, his addled brain had only half-grasped what he was doing.  In his feverish moments, he had simply been driven by the sheer desperate need to return to her, underscored by the strange conviction that somehow seeing the Slayer would make everything better.  In his more rational moments, he had recognized and accepted that she would probably do so by staking him, wiping him off the clean earth like the fledglings she ended every single night.

He had been ready for her to do it.

But instead she had taken him in, given him a place in her house, and defended him from the whelp who wanted to kill him, even though Spike himself had agreed with her friend for once.  And as time went on, she had only grown gentler with him, letting him patrol with her again and coaxing him out of his chains even knowing the dangers of him being triggered.  When the First had kidnapped and tortured him, Spike had thought the universe was trying to correct her mistake and punish him for her.  But then she had showed up, his lady knight with weapon in hand, and rescued him.

He closed his eyes, remembering how the last time a Big Bad had kidnapped and tortured him, the Slayer had been on her way to kill him.  It seemed strange but wonderful that now, when she had so many justifiable reasons to leave him to his fate, she had chosen to fight for him.

It was also strange that she kept coming to his basement, cuddling up to his cold body on this cot instead of sleeping with her warm and living charges upstairs.  Spike didn't understand why she did it.  Sure, the insufferably hopeful romantic sop inside of him hoped it meant something.   Love's bitch and all. 

But the sober side of him knew that could never happen.  She might have forgiven him enough to let him fight by her side.  But if the soul had convinced him of anything, it was that he wasn't fit to be anything more than her muscle.  He had only ever been kidding himself to think otherwise.  He was just lucky to be allowed back into her life at all.

Spike looked over his Slayer's head at the amulet hanging next to his coat from the bannister.  It was one of the keys that would help them win this battle.  That Buffy had trusted him with it made his heart swell.  She had called him a Champion.  

He wondered if ever a death sentence had been pronounced so sweetly.

That's what it was, though he wasn't sure he could explain how he knew that.  He supposed it was that the amulet had come through Wesley from Peaches himself.  That never boded well for Spike.  He had never received anything truly good from his grandsire's hand.

But that didn't matter, so long as it worked.  This was his chance, he knew.  His chance to make up for his earlier failure.  He was the one who should have died atop that tower two years ago.  If he had kept his promise, then Buffy wouldn't have had to jump and she wouldn't have been resurrected by a witch spiraling out of control and she wouldn't have gone through depression last year and he wouldn't have been around to make things worse.

So it was right that he should be the one to dust tomorrow.  It would be a good death, which was far more than he deserved.  It would free her, if not from her destiny, then at least from this Hellmouth where she had suffered so much.  She could live and enjoy doing so and be content in having allowed an old sinner to make a good end.

Spike inhaled deeply, savoring the scent of the girl he loved and trying to press it into his memory.  Tomorrow would be all heat and sulphur, but perhaps he would be able to recall this in his last moments.

Buffy shifted in his arms.  He frowned, noticing that her heartbeat had picked up again.  She opened one bleary eye.

"Should really try to get some kip," he told her.  "Big day tomorrow and all."

"I know," she whispered.  "I just had one last question that's really been bothering me."

"What's that, pet?"

She gave a frustrated sigh.

"What the hell is that flower poem all about?"

Spike grinned.  She really was his golden girl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just FYI, this story is 18 chapters long, so we will be going post-series for the last four chapters.


	15. Haunted Places

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I'm really, really sorry about how long it's been since I last updated. I've been away for a month with very little time and very weird wifi situations. I'm back home now, though, so hopefully I'll be able to update on my usual weekly schedule. Hope this chapter makes up for the long hiatus! Just a note on it: from this point forward, I'll be diverging more sharply from canon. 
> 
> Some dialogue taken from "Chosen" and "Belonging, Part 2."

_October 23, 2003_

 

_Dear Verity,_

_It feels weird to be writing to you from someplace other than Sunnydale.  I realized the other day that I'd never actually been outside California before now.  (In real life, I mean. Obviously I went on all sorts of vacations in all those fake memories from when we were living in LA with Mom and Dad.)  We're regular world travelers now, Buffy and I.  My passport's got a stamp on pretty much every page.  We've been to Dublin and Barcelona and Stockholm and Budapest and Paris and Berlin, all in one crazy summer._

_So far, I like Budapest the best, but Buffy says she prefers Paris._

_I think she just likes Paris because she got to fight these demons who tried to kidnap me near the Eiffel Tower and it was really, really funny because they were these big ugly hulking things but they kept shouting at her in French and it just sounded so ridiculous coming from them.  One of them was even carrying this teensy-tiny little designer handbag over his shoulder! I didn't manage to slay any of them because they were a lot bigger than most of the vampire fledges Buffy's had me practicing on, but I did manage to escape and trip the one who kidnapped me, so I feel pretty good about that.  I might not have superpowers, but I'm getting better at demon-fighting._

_Anyway, I was supposed to start school a couple of months ago, but Buffy was so busy tracking down Slayers that we couldn't really stop to think about that.  I think she feels a bit guilty, like she's failing in her guardian duties.  But I told her I was just continuing the Summers family tradition of starting a new school midway through the year.  We're supposed to settle down in Rome next month, so I can start school after Christmas.  At least Giles has managed to get me into this really nice school for expats there.  I sort of wish it wasn't_ so _nice, though, 'cause they've sent me all this stuff I'm supposed to learn in the meantime.  So basically I've got homework even though I haven't been in any classes._

_To be honest, I'm a little glad we've gotten to stay here in London a bit longer.  Giles and Buffy have been busy pulling together what's left of the old Watcher's Council and trying to start over.  At least this time the Slayers will have more of a say in things.  Strength in numbers, Buffy says._

_I've mostly been sight-seeing, which is cool because there's a lot to see in London.  England is pretty different from what I expected.  I mean, back in Sunnydale I always pictured it as this sort of gray place where everyone looked like Giles.  And well, I guess the gray part is kind of right if you're just talking about the weather.  It does rain a lot here._

_But actually, London is way more colorful than I gave it credit for back home._

_The very first night we were here, Buffy and I decided to ride on one of those double-decker buses just because we could.  We were the only ones on the upper deck and it was kind of fun but then a fight broke out on the lower deck and Buffy went downstairs to break it up.  When she came back up, she had this strange expression on her face and she said that the guys who were fighting sounded a lot more like Spike than Giles._

_I think it's hitting her a lot more than she expected, being in his home city._

_Giles has been keeping her busy, but whenever she has any down time she's always going out by herself.  And the other day when I was digging through her purse for some gum, I found this ticket stub from one of those tours of Victorian London that people in costumes hock in the really touristy areas. She got all red in the face when I asked her about it and mumbled some BS about Giles making her do educational stuff.  But I don't think he even knew about it.  I think it had a lot more to do with the actual Victorian Londoner we both used to know._

_You know, it's sort of funny but I keep feeling like I'm going to turn a corner and find him leaning against a building, lighting a cigarette and grinning like it was all just a big joke.  And the other day I decided to go to the National Gallery (because Mom had always talked about wanting to go there) and I was just wandering through the place and suddenly I was thinking about Spike sitting on our kitchen counter, chatting with Mom about artwork.  And then it was like I expected him to be there, making fun of the tour guides and annoying all the other museum-goers and accidentally revealing that he knows way more about all the paintings than a vampire should._

_It's like everywhere we go, he's supposed to be there too._

_It's weird because I don't really feel that way about Mom or Tara or Anya, even though I know they're dead as well.  And I don't feel that way about Xander or Willow, even though they're still alive in other parts of the world and actually_ could _come here and meet up with us if they wanted.  I think maybe it’s different with Spike because there's no body.  I mean, we buried Mom and Tara.  And even though we didn't have a funeral for Anya, I know her body is down there, buried in the Hellmouth.  But not Spike's.  All vampires leave behind is dust.  Don't get me wrong, I'm glad about that for Buffy's sake because slaying would be a lot more gross if there were bodies.  But when you actually care about one of them...well...it feels weird because you don't get to say goodbye properly._

_I guess that's okay, though, because I'm not really ready to say goodbye yet.  I think maybe that's why I haven't been writing in you as much, Verity.  I know I've only written once or twice since we left California.  But he's in practically every page of you, and there aren't very many pages left.  Somehow it feels like when I reach the last page--when I say goodbye to you--it will be like saying goodbye to him as well.  He really will be gone then and I'm not sure I'm ready for that._

_I think maybe I'd prefer to pretend he's really just around the corner forever._

**********

Buffy fingered her Styrofoam cup and stared out the window of the little deli where she had picked up a late-night snack.  The square outside seemed to have more people milling about than the entire human population of Sunnydale.  Who would have thought so many people would be out and about after dark?

Buffy might have been raised in LA, but she had spent the bulk of her teenage years in Sunnydale.  Now after a whirlwhind tour of Europe, the Hellmouth she had defended for so long suddenly seemed small and provincial.  The town might have attracted a wide variety of demons, but the humans hadn't exactly been a diverse lot.  There hadn't even been much evidence that it had originally been a Spanish settlement, aside from architecture and the old excavated mission.

But here in Leicester Square, there was a riot of humanity on display.  People from every possible background mingled on their way to and from the theater or else just roamed about, enjoying the atmosphere.  And the diversity was not just ethnic.  There were old people and young people and couples and tourists and families with children.  There were people dressed up and people dressed down and people dressed to get attention--which, she realized, was probably a lot harder to do in an area like this than someplace more boring.

There were so many different types of people that Buffy's eyes were beginning to play tricks on her.  Occasionally she would think she saw a flash of bleached hair, but it would always turn out to be just the moonlight glinting on something pale.  Or she would see a brush of black leather amidst the crowd, but it would always be just another man in just another leather jacket.  It was never the person she wanted to see.

She knew it was pointless to keep wishing she could see him again.  He was dust now.  She knew that.  But for some reason, she couldn't force her subconscious to accept it.  There was so much they hadn't talked about, so much she had put off in the hopes that she would survive the apocalypse and be able to deal with it afterward.  

Ironic, really.  She had spent all her time assuming that if anyone were to die in the Hellmouth, it would be her.  It had never occurred to her that he might be the one to go instead.  

And anyway, how dare he?  Dying was _her_ thing.  Surviving was his.   It wasn't supposed to be this way.  He was immortal.  He was supposed to outlast her.

Buffy supposed his survival skills and habit of returning were the real reasons she couldn't seem to let go of him.  In years past those things had annoyed her to no end.  He had always seemed indestructible--the menace she couldn't seem to kill.  The one who always found a way to escape every doom, bear every thrashing, and come back eager for more.  So why not now?  Why, when she actually wanted to see his smirking face again, did he have to be well and truly gone?

 

_The clamor of the battle dimmed around them.  Spike's chest was glowing, pierced through with the light of the amulet.  Buffy clasped his hand, lacing her fingers through his.  She let out a slight gasp as they caught fire.  Fear gripped her, the raw emotion processing the truth of what was happening even as her brain struggled to catch up.  She looked up into his eyes, feeling tears prick her own._

_She was going to lose him._

_"Spike, I love you," she whispered._

_He looked at her with eyes full of tenderness and sorrow._

_"No, you don't," he said quietly.  "But thanks for saying it."_

_The tremor from the Hellmouth tore their hands apart, but it was nothing compared to the pain reeling inside her.  Spike seized the opportunity._

_"Now go!" he shouted._

_Buffy swallowed and ran, not knowing whether she was running for her life or just because she couldn't bear to see him dust in front of her._

_It was only afterward, when she stood staring at the crater that had once been the town of Sunnydale, that she realized what she had lost._

Buffy stared into her cup, absently twirling the hot liquid with the stirrer.  It was all her fault, she realized.  She should have seen that he'd changed long before last year.  She should never have pushed him away all those times, never used him to drown her own depression.  Failing that, she should have made more time in the months before that last battle to talk about the two of them, about where they were going and what it meant.  She should have realized that it would take more than a few stolen moments of kindness to heal his heart. She should never have let him march into the Hellmouth believing himself unloved.  And she _definitely_ shouldn't have run out and left him to make the sacrifice play.

She couldn't even roll her eyes and call him a stupid vampire for not believing her last-minute declaration.  Because, really, why _should_ he believe her?  She had denied having any feelings for him for so long...and denied that his feelings for her were real.  Some might call it poetic justice that he didn't believe her when she finally voiced her love.

Except it wasn't really justice, because it hurt her victim along with her. 

Buffy sighed and finished her coffee.  She left the deli and wandered aimlessly through the square, lost in thought.

What would it have been like, she wondered, if he had crawled out the crater that afternoon, darting for cover from the California sun but alive and whole and victorious?  Would they have actually had that conversation she had been planning on having?  Would he have believed her then? Could they have made it work?  If they'd tried a relationship again, would it have been different the second time around?  What would it be like if he were here right now, sharing with her a place he'd loved even when he was evil?

Buffy smiled ruefully to herself at that last thought.  She should have known back then how different he was.

 

_"We like to talk big, vampires do.  'I'm going to destroy the world.'"_

_He patted himself down, searching for a cigarette carton and coming up empty._

_"It's just tough-guy talk," he continued, eyeing the cop and casually sauntering over to the police car.  "Strutting around with your friends over a pint of blood."_

_He perched himself on the hood, reaching into the coat of the unconscious man and stealing a carton._

_"Truth is, I_ like _this world.  It's got dog racing.  Manchester United.  And you got people.  Billions of people, all walking around like Happy Meals with legs.  It's all right here."_

_The Slayer took a step closer, trying to process what she was hearing.  The part about keeping his food supply safe didn't surprise her.  It made sense, really.  But what kind of vampire wanted to save the world for dog racing?_

_And what was the world in question coming to?  Her ex-boyfriend was torturing her Watcher and trying to destroy everything...and her mortal enemy was offering to help her stop him._

_The soulless not-hero standing in front of her lit his cigarette and continued.  "But then someone comes along with a vision.  A real passion for destruction."  He exhaled.  "Angel could pull it off.  Goodbye, Piccadilly, farewell Leicester bloody Square, you know what I'm saying?"_

 

At the time, she'd rolled her eyes, unwilling to believe that he could care about saving anything beyond his own skin.  The places he'd named had been nothing more than weird British words to her.  They hadn't meant anything.  But now that she was strolling through them, she could see how even an evil vampire could consider the world worth saving.  Leicester Square was Spike's kind of place.

It was amazing how well he seemed to fit his home city, she realized.  All the other European capitals she had visited the past few months had their own ways of making the past and the present coexist.  But nowhere was it as striking as in London.  Here double-decker buses lumbered down the same roads as retro-looking black cabs, red telephone booths stood across the street from old buildings, Indian restaurants shared the block with traditional pubs, and you could see all the palaces and historic landmarks from the gigantic Ferris wheel that dominated the skyline.  Despite knowing he'd spent a lot of his decades traveling the world over, seeing London somehow made Buffy feel like she had recovered some part of her lost punk-poet.

She thought about the book and folder that she had been carefully carting around Europe in her suitcase.  He'd poured his heart into all his poems, whether they were the romantic ones or the angry ones or the sad ones.  But while Buffy was no literary expert, even she could tell there wasn't much consistency to them, despite so many of them being written in a book of formal sonnets.  

And that fit him too.  

Because Spike was as confusing as London.  Buffy had never quite figured out how to square the lover with the fighter, the Victorian gentlemen he'd once been with the rude vampire who had spent the first couple years of their relationship trying to kill her.  But maybe Spike had evolved the same way London had.  Maybe that was how he'd learned to deal with all his own quirks and contradictions.

Or maybe not.  

Maybe that had nothing to do with it.  Maybe she was overthinking things again.  Either way, she'd never know now. 

Strange how last year she had cuddled with him on his cot, feeling connected in ways she had never believed possible.  Somehow she'd felt like after everything they'd been through, she really _knew_ him.  She knew him better than she knew Angel or Riley or even Xander and Willow.  But now that he was gone, she realized there was so much about him she _didn't_ know.  

Sure, she'd caught snippets here and there, when he was bragging about his kills or how Billy Idol had stolen his look.  But those were just small moments he'd let slip back when she had been way more interested in his body than his past.

What had his childhood been like?  What had happened to his father?  Did he have any friends as a human?  Apart from a series of bloody massacres, what had it been like to travel all across the world for a hundred and twenty years?  Where had he been during the world wars?  Had he and Drusilla managed to slip behind the Iron Curtain?  What sort of places did they stay in?  Where had he picked up that old black car of his and what had ever happened to it?

Buffy could remember a time when she had wondered similar things about Angel.  But that had really been about trying to mold herself to what she had assumed were his tastes.  This was different.  It wasn't insecurity so much as...regret?  She found herself wanting to know all the things that she had never wanted to know before because...because they were the things that had made him _him._ And Slayer business aside, Buffy had to admit that he was the real reason she was here in London, strolling down memory lane as she wandered through the crowded streets.

But even this wasn't enough.  Because, dammit, she _missed_ him.

She missed his stupid smirk and his rude humor and his pet names and the irritating fact that he managed to make smoking look sexy.  She missed their back porch talks and the way he dove headfirst into a fight without thinking.  She missed him being loud and whiny in Giles' bathtub and she missed him holding her quietly in her own basement.  

All that was left now of her stupid, wonderful, frustrating vampire were poems and places and memories.  Just traces of a century-long existence snuffed out in a moment of self-sacrifice.  Shadows, really, less tangible in their own way that the dust that must had fluttered to the ground when the amulet had finished doing its work.  But they were all she had, and some part of Buffy suspected that she would spend the rest of her life trying to catch hold of those specters.

A small prickle on the back of her neck told her that someone in the crowd wasn't human.  A red-headed man was lazily tracking a woman in a sari as she shuffled out of a shop.  Buffy saw his eyes flash amber and her instincts flared into high gear.  Duty called.  She broke into a trot, shoving her thinky-thoughts aside and trying hard not to feel like there should be someone on her left side.

It was nothing but a phantom.

 

**********

 

Halfway across the globe, the ghost of a vampire let out a string of curse words as his pen dropped from his hand for the sixty-third time.  Spike glared at the ballpoint as if the flimsy piece of plastic was to blame for his entire predicament.  Gritting his teeth, he examined his work of the past half-hour.

_Dea--_

The letters were shaky, like they'd been written by a child.  There was no way Buffy would believe they had come from him.  She knew his handwriting too well.

Frustrated, he tried to crumple the paper into a ball.  But he no longer had the patience for concentration and his hand just went straight through the sheet.  And the conference table beneath it.

Bollocks.

He eyed the phone in the corner of the room.  He could still do it, if he wanted.  Fred could help him.  She was busy right now, trying to stop this from happening, trying to turn Pavayne’s dirty trick against him.  But she also knew what would be most important to Spike in the event that he didn’t make it.  She would make the time for him to help him make the call. She could track down the number and dial it for him.  She'd probably even put it on speaker in a quiet room and leave him to talk to Buffy privately.

But what would he say?

Spike thought about all the conversations he'd had with Buffy.  Most of the times he'd thought he was getting somewhere with her, he'd ended up screwing things all to hell instead. Sure, he had got a little better over the past year.  Buffy hadn't gone running from him nearly as often.  But he still managed to put his foot in his ruddy mouth every other time he opened it.  Could he really trust himself not to muck up what was likely to be the last time he talked with her?  

There was so much he couldn't say.  So much he shouldn't say.  And if he heard her voice, he might not be able to stay strong.  He might break down and sob and let slip the terrible truth.  The truth that the Champion she'd chosen a few months earlier was getting cold feet and bewailing his fate.  The truth that he, Spike, the vampire who'd rushed headlong into battle and snuffed out so many other lives, had suddenly found that he didn't want to die.  

No, he couldn't talk to her on the phone.  

She'd been the one who'd believed in him, who'd given him the amulet and the opportunity to go out the way a warrior should.  He couldn't tell her that it hadn't worked out that way. Buffy was brave and strong and kind and she didn't deserve to discover that her mercy had been wasted on such a bleeding coward.  What would she say if she could see him now, weak and pathetic and begging for a reprieve from the second chance she'd given him?

Maybe Peaches was right.  Maybe he should just leave her alone, let her live her life and not bother her about his ghostly little problem.  If Fred didn't manage to make him a solid vamp again, it wouldn't matter that he'd come back for a short spell anyway.  Maybe in this case, ignorance _should_ be her bliss.

But suppose Buffy found out he'd been back some other way?  Would she curse him for not trying to tell her?  Would she think he was just another bloke who'd run out on her?  Spike doubted it would eat her up the way it did when her grandsire left or when soldier-boy ran off with his mates, but he hated feeling like he was part of a pattern.

Once he had found out Pavayne’s secret, writing to Buffy had seemed like the perfect solution.  He could choose his words a lot more carefully with a pen than with his mouth.  He could give her the barebones story and leave out the bit about hellfire and judgment awaiting him.  Fred had offered to track down an address and send it to his girls when he was done.  By the time it reached them, he would probably be gone, so it would be more of a goodbye letter than anything else.  But at least she would know he was still hers, even as a ghost.

Or she would, if he could ever finish the bloody letter.  Somehow, bending reality seemed even harder when trying to manage the intricacies of pen-holding.  It was unbelievably frustrating, and ordinarily Spike would never have had the patience for it.  But when you were a ghost, you really had nothing better to do than try to hold a pen for the sixty-fourth time.

Spike sighed, deciding he needed a break.  He stood up and walked through the table to the window.  Not the window looking outside, but the one facing inward toward the lobby. Because heaven forbid there be actual walls in this sodding place.  Working here was like working in a glass cage.  Clearly, Wolfram & Hart didn't trust employees they couldn't monitor.

He wondered idly what a non-evil human would think of this place if they walked in without knowing its company policies.  Would they find it light and airy, with its floating stairs and wide open spaces, pale wood grains and oversized windows?  Or would they notice how the employees watched each other with furtive looks of envy and distrust?  Would they sense the cutting undertones of the office chatter, the fear in the eyes of underlings when their bosses walked into the room?  Would they wonder about the stains that the janitors spent so much time scrubbing out of the carpets?

Strange that a place so clean and bright and tasteful could feel more claustrophobic than the crypt he had once called home.  Sunnydale might have been built on the mouth of hell, but Wolfram & Hart was its antechamber.

Maybe that was why the amulet sent him here first.

Spike rested his head on the glass and closed his eyes.  His fight with Pavayne yesterday had been cut short when Fred had managed to trap the doctor’s spirit in the basement while she figured out a way to make Spike safely solid again.  But the mixture of magic and science she’d concocted would only hold the sadistic bugger for a few days at most. 

And the chasm was still there, never far from his feet.  It felt like he was being suspended above it by the thinnest of ropes and any minute the strained fibers would snap and plunge him into the abyss forever.  He could picture it. Down and down he would fall, into darkness and fire. 

Ever since he'd got his soul back, Spike had known where he was headed.  He knew he was supposed to suffer eternal torment. He had made peace with it over a year ago.  And when Buffy had given him the amulet, he had accepted it as an undeserved gift.  It was his chance to turn his punishment into a victory, to sacrifice himself on the altar of love.

And he had.  He'd laughed as he surrendered his body to the fire, consumed with the joy of loving her.  Of loving the world.  Eternal torture seemed a small price to pay back then.  But he hadn't understood what he realized now, with the chasm yawning below him.  It wasn't the fire that was to be feared.

It was the ice.

He could feel that cold blackness mixing with the hellfires and blasting at him with devastating force.  He knew what it was and what it meant.  

Hatred.  Bitterness.  Loneliness.  Apathy.  Despair.  

Hell wasn't just fire and brimstone.  It was also the complete absence of all the things that made suffering tolerable, the snuffing out of love and kindness.  Folks in hell didn't care about each other or the people they'd left behind.  If they did, it wouldn't _be_ hell.  He'd heard it said that hell was other people.  But that wasn't true.  Hell was having no one...no one but yourself for all eternity.

That was what he was facing.  That was why he shuddered away from the horror below him instead of embracing it sacrificially.  It wouldn't matter why he'd done what he'd done.  Every bit of goodness and beauty he'd ever shown or been shown would be stripped from him the moment he passed through those fiery gates.  There was no place for it there.

"Abandon hope, all ye who enter here," he whispered and trembled at the words.

The chasm beneath him gaped wider, and Spike panicked.  It was like a predator, smelling his fear and weakness and closing in for the kill.  It must have heard his comment or sensed his despair, and was coming for him even without Pavayne to goad it along.  He gasped, falling to the ground and feeling his hold on the world slipping.  The clothes he had one back the previous day began to dissolve once more.

And suddenly the abyss was visible, a great roaring vacuum of darkness.  Spike's eyes widened and he clutched at the leg of the conference table. 

_Bend reality,_ he told himself.   _Just keep holding on._

But he knew it was useless.  The pull from the chasm had grown so strong he wouldn't be able to hold on for more than a few moments.

This was it.

Unbidden, images popped into his head.  

Mother smiling indulgently at one his poems.  Drusilla nuzzling close to him in Prague.  The smell of Joyce's hot cocoa.  Glinda teasing him at Buffy's party.  Niblet reading to him by the flame of his own lighter.  And Buffy....Buffy kissing him after his bout with Glory.  Buffy pulling him down from the cross.  Buffy helping him be quiet, believing in him, rescuing him.  Buffy spending her nights with him.  Buffy saying...saying...

God, how he loved her.  How he loved them all.

"Please," he begged.  He wasn't even sure who he was addressing.  What higher power would listen to a demon?  But he asked anyway.  "Please...please let me remember.  Do whatever you want with me, I don't care.  I'll go quietly.  Just let me remember them.  Let me remember her.  Let me..." 

His fingers were slipping.  He tightened his grip and made one last desperate bid for mercy.  "Please," he whispered, "please let me love."

Abruptly, the chasm closed.

Spike blinked and looked around him.  Everything in the room looked exactly as it had just a few minutes before.  The Wolfram & Hart employees were milling around outside the glass wall as if nothing had happened.  His grandsire was talking to the green-skinned demon across the lobby, a cup of steaming hot blood in his hand.  Orangutan by the smell of it.  Harmony was sitting at her desk, absently chewing on a purple pen and spritzing cheap perfume on a tacky plastic unicorn.  Spike wrinkled his nose in disgust.  He could smell it from here as well and it didn't mix well with the blood.

A tremor of shock ran through him as the realization hit.  

He could _smell._   


	16. Risking Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a note on the timeline. Even though this scene is taken from Destiny, it's meant to be less forty-eight hours after my last one, which is sort of an AU Hellbound, so keep in mind that it is taking place much earlier than it did in canon. I imagine that Eve and Lindsey, as soon as they saw Spike was corporeal again, would move up their plans and start with the fake cup much earlier. It seemed ambiguous to me whether the universe being thrown off-balance was something extra they added or a real effect of Spike being corporeal, but for the purposes of this chapter, I've gone with the latter interpretation.
> 
> Considerable dialogue taken from Destiny

October 2003

An eerie silence engulfed the abandoned opera house as Spike sat in one of the broken front row seats, staring quietly at the golden cup on the stage.  It really was a horrifically gaudy thing, not unlike the amulet that had brought him to Los Angeles in the first place.  Clearly, the PTB had allowed themselves to be affected by the tastes of the entertainment industry.

They'd also gone out of their way to tailor this whole soirée to his grandsire's broody outlook.  Cup of Perpetual Torment indeed.  

Personally, he thought it said a lot about the Powers that Angel served that they would throw the whole universe out of whack just 'cause two different vampires with souls had bothered to save the ruddy world.  Seemed to him that if having more Champions on the side of good threw the universe out of balance, the whole rotten scale was off-kilter.

Of course, he reasoned, it appeared they were taken by surprise by him coming over all corporeal again, so maybe he shouldn't be too hard on them.  Whoever had answered his cry back there in LA had messed up all their nice plans and prophecies.  Spike wasn't sure who it had been, but he had rather enjoyed being part of the upsetting of the apple cart.

He probably should feel guiltier that folks were bleeding their eyes out because he was a solid vamp again, but he wasn't worried too much.  No one had died and it was all about to be over anyway.  Spike had a plan, and for once he also had the patience to see it through.  

Spike reached inside his jacket and pulled out a cigarette.  He lit it with a match--Lil Bit still had his lighter--and closed his eyes, enjoying the pleasant warmth and nicotine rush.  

Sweet, merciful heavens but it felt good to taste things again.  The first few hours he'd been solid had been pure ecstasy as he ran around the office, feeling the textures, breathing in the scents, and cramming his face with both blood and human food.  He might very well have traumatized several employees, which was saying something at an evil law firm.

He did feel bad about ruining Lorne's jacket though.  The crushed suede had been too tempting not to rub across his face, but he probably should’ve done it _before_ he'd given himself a blood mustache.  He should probably send Fred back with some dosh for the dry-cleaning bill before he left.

Spike finished his cigarette and crushed it under his boot, thanking his lucky stars that he hadn't let himself get too carried away with his excitement.  He'd almost bollocksed it all up at the outset.  Just as he'd finally calmed his other appetites, Harmony had appeared out of nowhere.  And then suddenly a very male need had overwhelmed his better judgment and he'd begun kissing her frantically.  

But the urge had passed almost as quickly as it had arisen, and when Spike had come to his senses he'd realized that she wasn't the woman he wanted.  And if he was getting a second lease on life, he couldn't start it off by making Harmony the first bird he shagged with his newly-working body.

Not that he was sure the girl he really wanted would have him.

Still, it was worth a shot.  Leastways she and Niblet would know he was alive and still cared about them.  And maybe if she didn't have a new bloke in her life...

No, that train of thought was no good.  Best not get his hopes up.  If she let him back into her life at all, that was more than he had any right to expect from her.  Even if she did say... _those_ words...back there that last day in good ol' Sunny D.

Of course, Angel had tried to stop him from leaving.  Spike had expected no less from the great git, running his mouth 'bout how if you love someone you let them go and didn't Buffy deserve to get on with her life and so on and so forth till Spike had wanted to pop him one right there in the middle of the lobby.

He probably would have too, if Harmony hadn't started screaming and bleeding her eyes out.  Then it had been all prophecy this and destiny that and Champions and cups of torment and becoming a sodding human again.  Because apparently changing species was what redemption looked like to Angel.

Spike sighed and stood up, approaching the cup on the stage.  He supposed if he'd stuck around Wolfram & Hart a bit longer he might've been tempted by it as well.  Place had a way of messing with a bloke's mind.  Or maybe that was just Angel.  

Point was, for a while there he had almost bought into it all.  The grand glorious destiny that would wipe his slate clean if he worked hard enough and did the whole vigilante routine.  It sounded so noble.  

And Spike supposed it _almost_ was.  After all, he didn't expect atoning for the bad things he'd done to be all raindrops on roses or anything.  Even for squeaky-clean heroes, fighting the good fight was tough going.  Buffy had shown him that.

But that was just the thing.  She'd also shown him so much more.

Spike closed his eyes, remembering a cold December night and the girls who had chased away his darkness.  Nothing about that night, nothing about the blanket Buffy had wrapped around him, nothing about Niblet's poetry reading, had seemed grandiose or predestined.

But it had seemed right.

And the strength of that memory, that feeling of rightness, had been enough to break through the fog of Angel's bullshit.  In a moment of clarity as Sirk rambled on about cups and prophecies, Spike had walked out of the Wolfram & Hart office, intent on leaving the git to his lonely chosen road.

But he'd barely pulled out of the parking garage before he'd been struck with an unexpected and completely unwanted prickle of concern for his grandsire. 

Spike supposed Pavayne was to blame for that, and his own near brush with hell.  He'd hadn't had much of a chance to think about either amid the whole bleeding-eyes epidemic.   But while they'd been busy strapping Harmony down and trying to figure out what the hell was going on, Fred had come running up from the basement, her face as white as a sheet.  Tiny thing that she was, she still almost managed to bowl him over in a bear hug, sobbing her relief that he was okay.  It had taken several minutes for her even to register that she was hugging a solid bloke.

When he'd managed to calm her down, Fred had explained that she had been in the basement, testing the barrier that had been keeping Pavayne's ghost in place, when all of a sudden, he'd become visible.  And she had stared in horror while a giant chasm opened beneath him and swallowed him whole.  Apparently, when the doctor had failed to feed hell its regular portion of filet o' vamp, it had gone after him instead.

Spike shuddered at the thought.

That was why he was here in this opera house instead of settling into a nice interior cabin on his way across the ocean right now.  Because it didn't take the GhostBusters gang to see that Pavayne had already been in hell without realizing it.  The only horrors he'd been saving himself from were the flames.  All the things that Spike had feared losing were already gone from his existence.  He'd been nothing but a bitter shell of a man. 

And Angel was heading down that same path.

Spike had a lot of bad history with his grandsire.  Even a severe thrashing wouldn't cover it all, though he wasn't above trying.  S'why they called it tough love, right?

Cause, dammit, Peaches was a self-righteous prick with a martyr complex but he was still family.  And if no one else was gonna knock some sense into his thick skull...well then, it would be a right pleasure for Spike to rise to the occasion.

His ears pricked as he heard the distinct purr of a sports car in the distance.  Spike hurried to the window and peered into the darkness.  A Jaguar came to a screeching halt in front of the opera house.

_Speak of the devil_ , he thought in amusement.  His body hummed in anticipation.  It had been too long since he'd had a good fight.  His grandsire wasn't his preferred opponent, but he would have to do until Spike managed to step foot on European soil.  He watched as Angel walked cautiously through the open door.

The show was about to start.

 

**********

 

Angel was simmering with rage.  He’d been pushing the gas pedal all night long, nearly wrecking several times, just to find out that Spike had still managed to beat him to the opera house.  He probably had already drained the Cup and robbed Angel of the destiny he had been working so hard for ever since he’d moved to LA.  

He swore under his breath.  It just wasn’t fair.  Wasn’t it enough that Spike had stolen away his sweet innocent Slayer and turned her against him?  He also had to go and take away the prize Angel had been wanting for so long?  And what were the PTB thinking, letting this happen?  Sure, Angel may have made a few detours over the years, lost sight of his goals a few times, but he’d done so much for them.  Why were they letting Drusilla’s little upstart home in on Angel’s territory?

He was the Champion!  Him.  Angel.  Vampire with a Soul.  He would _not_ let Spike steal that away.

The door to the opera house creaked as he opened it.  The inside was dark and full of broken debris.  Evidently no one had bothered to scavenge the place after the earthquake that had destroyed it.

_Focus, Angel!_  he berated himself.  His senses tingled, alerting him to the presence of blood kin.  He inched his way toward the auditorium.

A voice broke out in the darkness. 

“Here we are then.  Two vampire heroes, competing to wet our whistle with a drink of light, refreshing torment."

Angel glanced up.  Spike was looking down on him from the balcony.

“Is that what you think you are?  A hero?” 

Spike lifted an eyebrow.  “Saved the world, didn’t I?"

“Once,” Angel scoffed.  “Talk to me after you’ve done it a couple more times."

Spike's mouth twisted into an amused smile.

“Hate to break it to you mate, but that ship's already sailed.  That pretty little amulet was my third apocalypse.  Fought in two others before I even got the ruddy soul."

Angel’s stomach took a queasy turn, remembering how Buffy had compared him to Spike.

_“You really are a vampire of vampires, aren’t you?  Because while Spike was busy writing love poems to Drusilla, you were trying to end the whole damn world.  No wonder you hate him so much.  He looks positively saintly next to you."_

He shook himself.  Buffy had just been angry about the stupid book.  She hadn’t actually meant what she had said.  And she’d had Spike whispering all sorts of bullshit in her ears over the years, corrupting her sweet innocence.

He couldn't let Spike play this game with him.  He stared coldly up at the younger vampire.  

“You idiot.  You weren’t being a hero those other times.  You were just mooning over a girl." 

Spike’s grin grew wider.  “Sounds like a pretty damn good reason to go all White Hat to me.”  He rapped his fingers lightly on the railing.  “But as much as I’d love to stay and chat, I’ve got to run.  Rumor has it there’s a prophecy what needs fulfilling.  Ta!”  He gave a cheery wave and disappeared.

“Spike!  Dammit!”  Angel yelled in frustration.  But he followed him.  Evidently Spike hadn’t found the Cup yet.  Angel might still have a chance to secure his right to it.

He wandered further into the auditorium, his eyes soon drawn to the stage.  An elaborate golden chalice stood on a pedestal, bathed in a soft light.  He was a little surprised.  He had been expected the cup to be hidden away, probably with some elaborate trials he had to go through to get to it.

But it appeared the only obstacle in his path was his annoying grandchilde.

As if summoned by the thought, Spike jumped down from the rafters and landed beside him.  Angel could barely keep from rolling his eye at the show of dramatics.  For a few moments, they stood side by side, contemplating the chalice in front of them.

“Thought it’d be a little less goldeny, what with the torment and all,” Spike commented casually.

Angel eyed him uncertainly.

“So…what do we do now?"

Spike gave a deep sigh and without warning his fist shot out.  Angel found himself flying through the air, stars bursting in his vision.  He landed hard on a pile of rubble.

The younger vampire sauntered over to him with a smirk on his face.

“What do you think?"

Angel sighed in exasperation.  “Spike, we don’t have time for this!"

Spike tilted his head.  “Oh, you’re gonna _make_ time for it, Gramps.  I still owe you for taking my book.”

Angel blinked.

“Seriously?  You’re picking a fight about that _now?_ ” he asked.

Spike’s face darkened.  “No time like the present, Gramps.  How’d it work out for you, by the way?  Passing my stuff off as your own?  Kind of got the impression the Slayer wasn’t too chuffed when she found out."

Angel looked away. 

“You poisoned her against me,” he accused.

Spike laughed.  “Sorry, mate.  You did that all on your own.”

He crouched down to look Angel in the eye, an amused glint in his own.

“S’alright, Angel.  Should really be thanking you for giving Buffy my book.  Seems she really developed a taste for dear old Browning…and some of the other stuff between those pages."

Angel glared at him.  “Clearly her tastes have gone downhill."

He’d expected Spike to be provoked by the comment.  His poetry had always been one of his weak spots, one that had frequently left him open to barbs in the past.

But Spike just laughed.

“That all you got?” he snickered.  “Was hoping for something with a bit more fire behind it, you know?"

Angel pulled himself to his feet.

“Fine,” he snapped, raising his fist for a punch.  “We’ll do it your way."

They fought, mutual anger giving their punches a brutal force.  As they circled each other, Angel found himself remembering just why he had always found fights with Spike so irritating.  No matter how many blows he landed, the younger vampire never reacted the way he was supposed to react.  He seemed to find the whole thing funny.  Annoyed, Angel recalled that he had always behaved the same way during torture.

He slipped, and Spike took the opportunity to throw him across the room again.  Angel landed on a cross and hissed in pain as it burned him.

Spike gave a short laugh.  “Oh, yeah.  Look at you, thinking you’re the big savior.  Fighting for truth, justice, soccer moms.  But you still can’t lay flesh on a cross without smelling like bacon, can you?"

Angel narrowed his eyes.  “Like you’re any different."

He threw the cross at him.  Spike caught onto it and held it for a moment.  Angel felt his stomach twist in discomfort.  Spike’s hands were burning all right, but he didn’t look like he was in a lot of pain.  He set it aside slowly and looked up at Angel, a strange expression in his eyes.

“Well, that’s just it.  I am.  And you know it.  You had a soul forced on you, as a curse.  Make you suffer for all the horrible things you’ve done.  But I…I _fought_ for my soul.  Went through the demon trials.  Almost did me in a dozen times over, but I kept fighting.  ‘Cause I knew it was the right thing to do."

“Really?”  Angel shot back.  “Heard it was just to get into a girl’s pants."

A muscle in Spike’s jaw hardened.  Within seconds, he was on top of Angel, grabbing him by the shirt collar.

“Well, you’d know a lot about that, wouldn’t you, _Liam_?”  He let go of him.  “How many girls did you ruin and abandon before Darla even came along?"

 “That was a long time ago,” Angel growled.  “I’m different now."

“Wasn’t so long ago by my reckoning.  Or do you mean to tell me you were just _snogging_ a girl of seventeen when you lost that precious soul of yours?"

Angel chose not to dignify that with an answer.  Instead, he grabbed a metal bar from the ground and flew at Spike again.  

“Yeah, that’s right!  Give it to me, Gramps!  Show me what you’re really made of!"

The two of them danced around each other, Angel occasionally swinging the bar at the irritating menace.  Spike dodged several of his blows, but finally one of them struck him square in the chest.  He laughed.

“Look at you, playing the good guy, the straight shooter.  You know the prophecy doesn’t actually say you are, right?  ‘Vampire with a soul.  Nobody knows what side he’s gonna fight on when the big show comes down.’  Except we already know what side you’re on, don’t we?  Already made your choice. Traded in your cape and tights for a nice comfy chair at Wolfram and bloody Hart."

Angel grimaced, hoping Spike couldn’t see that his dart had struck home.

“Little more complicated than that,” he said as smoothly as he could.  “But you always were a bit simple, _Willy_."

He could see from Spike’s narrowed eyes that his old nickname hadn’t gone unnoticed.  Good.  It was about time he learned some respect. 

Angel went after him again with the bar, but Spike blocked him, grabbing the piece of metal and ripping it out of his hands.  Angel stumbled backward in surprise.

“Oh?” Spike tossed the bar aside and punched him again.  “Enlighten me, then.  ‘Cause it seems pretty damn simple to me."

“Yeah, well you never really were one for finesse, now were you boy?  Always did run headlong into a fight, never stopping to use your brain..."

"Whereas you always liked to spin your webs like a bloody overgrown spider.  Guess I shouldn't be surprised you gave over the whole midnight warrior hustle.  You were made to lead a law firm, Angel."

Angel gave a sigh of exasperation.  

"Now, see, that's where you got it all wrong, Willy."  He ducked another punch.  "I didn't join Wolfram & Hart for the cushy chair.  I just figured it out.  You don't change the world from the streets.  It's gotta be an inside job."

Spike gave him a disbelieving look.  "And I suppose that pretty little Viper I stole had absolutely nothing to do with your change of method."

That uncomfortable feeling pinched at Angel's stomach again.

"So Wolfram & Hart have more resources than me," he said defensively.  "That just means there's no point trying to fight them.  I can save a lot more people by trying to change them from inside.  Make them a force for good."

"And I s'pose you're just the vamp to do it," Spike said sardonically.  "Paragon of the morally upright, you are.  No risk at all, playing around with dark side's weapons."

The image of Darla and Drusilla screaming as they desperately clawed at a fire hydrant flashed across Angel's mind.  He shoved it away.

"I can do it," he insisted.  "The mission is still the same.  It's just now I have the budget to do more than I ever could on my own."

Spike rolled his eyes.  "Right.  And no one, in the history of the world, has ever been corrupted by power or money."

Angel swallowed, unsure how to answer that.  It was true.  There was that risk.  He'd known it when he'd first agreed to Wolfram & Hart's terms.  Part of him still wondered about their suspiciously generous offer.

It dawned on him that they had stopped fighting several minutes ago.  He stared at his grandchilde uncertainly.  Spike's face was uncharacteristically closed.  Angel had an uncomfortable feeling, like he was a defendant standing before a jury.  Something inside him rebelled at the thought.

"Just where do you get off acting like you're so much better?" he snapped angrily.  "Take a look in the mirror.  You're nothing, no reflection.  You can act all righteous about winning your soul, but at the end of the day you're just another vampire with a body count."

Angel balled his fists, preparing to fight again.  "Face it, Spike.  The only reason you were the second worst vampire on record is you never were skilled enough to outdo the first.  You're just a copy, Willy-boy _.  I'm_ the real thing."

Finally, Angel managed to get beneath his opponent's skin.  Spike glared at him murderously, and his fist shot out again.

"Oh?  Tell me more, hero," he snapped as they renewed their fight in earnest.  "And I'll tell you why you can't stand the bloody sight of me."

"Tell it to your therapist!" Angel growled as he blocked Spike's punches.

Spike ignored him.

"'Cause every time you look at me, you see all the little dirty things I've done--all the lives I've taken--because of _you!_   Drusilla sired me, but you... _you_ made me a monster!"

"I didn't make you, Spike.  I just opened the door and let the real you out."

Spike landed a blow to his midsection and Angel doubled over.

"You never knew the real me."  He walked slowly toward Angel, anger rolling off of him in waves.  "You were too busy trying to see your own reflection.  Praying there was someone as disgusting as you in the world, so you could stand to live with yourself."

He paused a beat.

"Well, take a long look hero.  I'm _nothing_ like you."

Angel looked up at him.  Somehow Spike seemed taller than usual.  Rage boiled inside his stomach.  For a moment, he forgot all about his last encounter with the Slayer.

"No," he spat.  "You're less.  That's why Buffy never really loved you.  Because you weren't me."

He shouldn't have mentioned Buffy.

Without warning, Spike toed the metal bar that Angel had been using earlier, kicking it up to his hand.  Before Angel could deflect, he brought it crashing down on his skull.

The world went black.

 

**********

 

When Angel came to his senses again, he found himself draped across the tattered first row of seating.  He looked up, trying to focus through the pounding in his skull.

His vision cleared and he froze.

Spike was perched on the edge of the stage.  He was leaning against the pedestal, casually twirling the Cup in his hand.

Angel stared in horror.  Had Spike already sipped it?  Was everything already lost?

Spike noticed his open eyes and threw him a smirk.

"You know," he drawled.  "Champions really can't afford to sleep so long.  Whole bloody world could've ended while you were out."

Angel felt a flicker of hope.  Spike wouldn't be taunting him if he'd already taken a drink.  He groaned and tried to pull himself upright, quickly realizing that he wasn't in any condition to continue fighting.  All he had left were words.

"Spike, wait," he tried desperately, trying to keep his voice calm and reasonable.  "That's not a prize you're holding. It's not a trophy.  It's a burden.  It's a cross.  One you're gonna have to bear till it burns you to ashes.  Believe me, I know."

Spike lifted an eyebrow.  "That's rich.  Happens I also know a bit about embracing crosses and getting burned to ashes."

He hopped up, set the Cup back on its pedestal and approached Angel casually.  When he was just a couple feet in front of him, Spike lifted his shirt. "Take a look."

Angel blinked.  What the hell?

But then as he looked closer at Spike's chest, he saw it.  It was probably too faint for the human eye to catch, but there it was--a very subtle change in skin color, the slight outline of a scar running the length of his midsection.  It looked very much like Spike had hugged a...

He gasped, looking up at his grandchilde.  "How?"

Spike tugged his shirt back down.  "Doesn't matter.  Point is, I don't want your sodding cup."

"Wh-what?"

"You heard me.  I'm bowing out.  Taking my leave."  He returned to the stage, sat down again and put his hands behind his head as he leaned back against the pedestal.  "So you can keep your knickers dry, Sally.  You're still Shiny Special Boy with the destiny.  Me?  Don't want it.  Don't need it.  Got a boat to catch."

Angel gaped at him for a moment.  It would never in a million years have occurred to him that Spike might not want the Cup.

"So--why are you even here if you don't want it?" he finally managed.

"S'where you thought I'd be, innit?"  He gave Angel an indolent smile.  "Figured I might not be seeing you for a while.  Should make a proper goodbye."

Angel swallowed.  "You really shouldn’t have bothered," he muttered.

"Yeah?  Too bad." Spike sat up straighter.  "We need to chat.  You know, demon to demon."

"This is chatting?" Angel gestured pointedly to the cuts and bruises that were covering the two of them.

Spike shrugged.  "Like I said, I owe you."  He gave a small sigh.  "But whether either of us likes it or not, we're family.  And I'm worried 'bout you, Angel."

"Gee, I'm touched."  Angel rolled his eyes.  "So…what's this all about then?"

Spike stood up, turning to contemplate the Cup again.  Angel eyed him warily, half expecting him to drain it suddenly.  This had to be a trick.  Spike wouldn't give up something like that.

But the younger vampire just stared at the glittering chalice.  

Finally, he spoke softly.

"But whether there be prophecies, they shall fail, whether there be tongues, they shall cease, whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away."

"What's that?" Angel asked in confusion.  The words sounded vaguely familiar.

Spike shook his head.  "Nothing.  Just a memory from another life."  He turned to face Angel again.  "Doesn't matter right now.  'Cause you're chasing after ashes, Angel."

Angel shifted uncomfortably beneath Spike's gaze.  He found himself wishing aspirin worked for vampires.  "What do you mean?"

"Just this.  Say you get your wish.  Fight the grand battle, stay the course, win the great victory for Team Good.  Say you become human again.  What then?"

Angel looked at him in surprise.  

"Then I'll be a human.  I'll be alive.  I'll be able to go out in the sun.  I'll be able to be happy, to have someone, to..." He let his voice trail off, his entire body trembling.  Being human meant he could rest, could be at peace.  It meant an end to his eternal suffering.  It meant his atonement was complete.

"That's just it, Gramps.  You won't be able to do those things.  You don't wave a sodding wand and become a different person just because your heart starts beating.  Being happy, learning to love--those things take practice."

Angel felt himself stiffen.  "I already know how to love just fine," he said, offended.

Spike rolled his eyes.  "No, you don't.  You just abandon the folks what care about you and call it love."

"If you're talking about Buffy, I did that for her.  I knew we couldn't be together.  She deserved a normal life.  I let her go because I loved her!" Angel's voice took an insolent tone.  "And you should too," he added.  "You shouldn't go running after her either."

Spike gave a dry laugh.

"You really are a piece of work, Angel," he said.  "You didn't let her go.  You kept coming back, making sure you were still the One and Only in her eyes.  But that's not the point."

"Oh? Then what's the point?" Angel asked with a scowl.

"Point is that leaving her was only the right thing to do because you couldn't love her," he said.  "And I'm not just talking romps in the sack.  I mean you couldn't _love_ her.  You couldn't stick it out, didn't have what it takes to stay with someone through the thick and thin of it.  You did the same thing when you were Liam, you did it when you were Angelus, and you're doing it now."

"You-you're wrong," Angel muttered.

"Am I?"

Angel stared at the floor, remembering the night he had stood outside a stranger's house and watched his son laugh around a table with a family that wasn't really his own.  It hadn't been his fault that Connor hated him so much.  That was Holtz' poison.  Cutting himself out of the boy's life, out of his memory, had been the only solution that would allow his son a happy future.  It had been a sacrifice on Angel's part.  

Hadn't it?

"Listen, Angel," Spike continued.  "You're right about me.  M'not much of a thinker.  I follow my blood.  But if there's one thing I _do_ know, it's that being a good boy and playing by all the rules doesn't mean much if you're not doing it for the right reasons.  You can drink your special tonic and _shan_ your bloody _shu_ , but if you don't have someone you really care about, all you'll be is a vampire in a mortal body."

"But I _do_ care about others!" Angel insisted.  "You're just not seeing the big picture.  I don't just love one or two people--I've got the whole world to think about.  That's what it means to be a Champion!  That's what my destiny is all about!"

Spike rolled his eyes.  

"S'a good thing I actually give a shit, Angel, 'cause your poncy grandstanding's starting to wear real thin, you know?"  He hopped down from the stage.  "Loving the world starts with loving your own.  S'not an either/or sort of thing."

"It is for me," Angel whispered.

Spike looked at him for a moment.  

"I know," he said quietly.  "That's your whole tragedy, innit?  'Cause love can rip your insides to shreds.  But it can also put you over the bloody moon.  And you can't risk that."

He took a couple of steps closer.

"You're in the perfect catch-22, aren't you Angel?  You'll lose your soul if you love someone.  But you'll lose it all the same if don't."

Angel bristled in anger.  He didn't like the expression of pity on Spike's face.

"The Powers know what they're doing," he said.  "They brought you back, didn't they?  Shouldn't you be making good on that, not wasting your second chance chasing after a girl?"

Spike shook his head.  "Don't know who brought me back, mate.  But whoever it was seems to care a lot more'n the ones that've got you hopping through hoops.  Gotta be some mercy 'long the way for sorry sods like you and me, yeah?"

Angel didn't know how to answer that.  If Spike was right, this whole enterprise was pointless.  The prize at the end of the tunnel was the very thing he needed to get through it.  But it couldn't be that simple.

Could it?

Spike shuffled around in his coat, pulling out a pen and notepad.  He started scribbling something down.

"What are you doing?" Angel asked suspiciously.

Spike shot him a look.  "Trying to save that shiny soul you're so proud of, you stupid git."

He finished writing, tore off the page, folded it and held it out.  Angel took it reluctantly.  

"What is this?" he asked, staring at the numbers on the paper.

"Coordinates," Spike said simply.  "To a cave in Africa.  You really want to be happy…you really want to have love…you _can_.  Go through the demon trials, make that soul of yours stable for your own sake and everyone else's."

Angel stared at him in shock.  "You just expect me to--"

"Don't expect you to do anything, mate," Spike said, cutting off his rant before it began.  "If anything, I s'pect you'll just keep it a drawer somewhere for a century or two, pulling it out on occasion to stare at it.  S’what you do, Angel."

He tucked the note into Angel's shirt pocket and gave his shoulder a painful clap.

"Got to head out now.  Got a boat waiting.  Fred's holding the ticket for me at the dock.  Nice chatting with you, Gramps."

Spike turned and headed briskly for the exit.  He paused in the doorway, turning back briefly.

"You know, Angel, I hope I'm wrong," he said.  "I hope you do follow those coordinates.  I don't think you will, but you really should.  I've seen what the end of the line looks like when you can't love.  And I hate your guts, but not that much.  So do me a favor.  Prove me wrong."

And with that, he was gone.

Angel stared at the empty doorway for several long minutes.  Then slowly he pulled himself to his feet, groaning in pain as he did.  He stumbled over to the stage and climbed up.  He looked down at the golden Cup, wondering if Spike was right.  Could it be that the Powers were leading him on an empty chase?  

Hesitantly, he brought it to his lips and took a sip… 

…and quickly spat it back out. He stared at the cup in frustration.

It was just Mountain Dew.

 

**********

 

There were just a few minutes left before dawn.  Spike and Fred stood on the pier, watching the waves lap the sides of the ship.  Fred was restless, double checking the tote she had packed for him, and making sure he had enough blood to get him to Asia.

"You got all your tickets?" she asked.

Spike held them up bemusedly.

"Good.  Good.  That's good," she said distractedly.  "Now remember, you get off the boat in Japan and you catch the next one to the mainland.  Then from there on it’s all trains until you get through the Urals and then you can rent a car and--"

"I'll be fine, Mum," Spike said with a grin.  "I'm a hundred and twenty, remember?  I know how to get across the globe."

Fred gave him an abashed look.  "Sorry. I'm hovering, aren't I?  It's what my folks used to do."

Spike tucked a strand of hair behind her ears.  "S'okay, luv.  Kind of feels nice to be fussed over a bit."

She blushed slightly.  "Buffy's a lucky girl," she said.  "I'm going to miss you."

Spike gave a short laugh.

"You're probably the only one," he said. "But thanks anyway."

The both looked down in embarrassment.  Spike scruffed the wood planks of the pier with the toe of his boot.

"Don't have any real way of thanking you," he said at last.  "I mean, for doing what you did.  Trying to help me."

Fred looked up at him.  "It wasn't me in the end."

"I know.  But you tried.  And that's..." Spike rubbed the back of his neck shyly. 

"I'm still not sure I understand why the universe suddenly righted itself," she confessed.

"It's 'cause of this, innit?" He gestured at the boat he was waiting to board.  "Me riding off into the sunset, leaving Angel to be Grand Prophetic Git."

Fred looked off into the distance.

"I wonder if that's actually what happened," she mused.

"Come again?"

But before she could answer, the sound of a horn made them both jump.

"Guess that's the all-aboard call," Spike said.

Fred nodded, handing him his bag.

He paused, looking down at her uncertainly

"What is it, Spike?" she asked gently.

He rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment.  "S'none of my business, really, but..." He took a deep breath.  "...you should tell him, luv."

Fred blinked.  "Him?"

"Your Watcher-boy.  Tell him how you feel.  Don't wait.  Life's too short to put off something like that.  Trust me."

"I-I'll think about it," she stammered.

He smiled and gave her a small peck on the cheek.  

"You do that, pet."

He straightened, suddenly nervous.

"You're doing the right thing," she assured him.  She patted him on the arm.  "Go get 'em, tiger."

Spike grinned and gave her a mock salute.  He turned and marched up the pier, boarding the ship.  

Ten minutes later, the final horn sounded and the ship began to move away from the dock.  He made his way to the deck and looked out across the ocean.  Somewhere out there, across an ocean and two whole continents, the girls he loved so much were starting a new journey.

He swallowed hard, the fear that had vanished during his fight with Angel coming back in full force.  It was probable, he realized, that Buffy had already moved on.  That she and Dawn would have no place for him in their new life.  That he would get the polite brush-off.  Spike knew that if that happened, it could crush him.

But that was love for you.  High risk, real dangers, joy and pain all jumbled up in one complicated bag.  Spike jutted out his chin stubbornly.

His girls were worth it.

 


	17. Eternal City

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first the poems are by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Frost, and Helen Chasin. The last one is a Spuffy special.

November 2003 

 

The night was cold and quiet as a passenger train snaked its way through the vast interior of Russia, heading west toward the Urals.  Spike sat next to the window, staring at the notebook that was spread over the pop-up table and struggling to compose a poem fit for the girl he was traveling halfway across the world to see.

It wasn't going well.

Without warning, the train began screeching to an abrupt halt.  Spike's pen flew across the page, leaving a crush of black ink across the page.  He stared at the ruined page for a moment before ripping it out of the book, wadding it up, and tossing it on the cabin floor in frustration.  Good job he wasn't sharing a cabin.  The floor was becoming positively littered with worthless poetry.

Spike leaned back and closed his eyes.  The journey across Eurasia had been long and slow, giving him far too much time to think.  In California, his conviction had been strong as he'd battled his grandsire.  But after so many days in cramped cabins with nothing to stare at but dingy window curtains, his fears and worries had begun to mount.  

What if--impossible as it might sound--what if Angel had actually been right?  What if he was being selfish, trying to worm his way back into her life?  Should he have called first?  What if she had a new bloke on her arm?  What if he bollocksed up her life again?  What if he ended up just being a reminder of bad things past?

Several times, he’d had to fight the urge to turn back.  Most of the time, he could resist it by focusing on his poems or planning the next stage of the journey.  But earlier this evening, his worries had become unbearable, and on an impulse he’d tried to jump trains at the first stop after nightfall, hoping to be carried back into the wilds of Siberia.

Only problem was there hadn’t been any trains _to_ jump.  He was in the middle of sodding nowhere.  None of the stations they’d stopped at were big enough to support multiple lines.  He’d jumped off at the first station and then looked around with the sinking realization that it was almost bigger than the town it was supporting.  He’d been forced to re-board quickly before he found himself stuck trying to hide out in a farmer’s barn indefinitely.

Apparently the universe wasn’t going to let him slink away.  Maybe it realized he didn’t really want to.

Spike sighed and looked out the frosted window at the tiny station outside.  It was mostly empty, but there were still a few brave souls bundled against the Russian winter, selling cigarettes and chocolate.  Sadly, the fresh dumplings that one could usually find at stations earlier in the evenings had disappeared, their sellers all having gone home.  

His stomach growled as the thought of human food reminded him that he needed blood.  Deciding he needed to stretch anyway, Spike stood up and left the cabin.  He made his way down the carriage to the samovar, where he filled a Styrofoam cup with piping hot water.   One of the perks of a Russian train.

Returning to his cabin, he shuffled through his packs until he found a small cloth cooler with some blood.  Fred--bless her--had managed to convince someone at Wolfram & Hart to place a spell on it to keep the blood frozen indefinitely.  She'd stuffed it to the brink with blood bags, and he hadn't had to restock once since he'd set out.

Spike plopped a bag of blood in the water and let it heat up.  Soon the salty, delicious smell filled his nostrils and he mentally thanked Fred for raiding Angel's stock of orangutan.  A few minutes later, the blood was ready and he bit into the bag as the train began to move again.  The Russian countryside passed before his eyes, lit only by moonlight.  Spike contemplated the landscape as he slowly sipped his blood.

It was a far cry from the sunny world he had left behind in downtown Los Angeles.  The cold and dark suited him just fine, but he was glad for Buffy and Dawn's sake that they had decided to stop and stay someplace a little brighter and less remote.  He wondered how his girls were liking their new home.  From what Fred had told him, they should be just settling into a small villa in the outskirts of Rome.  Buffy had purchased it with her new Watcher’s Council salary.

About bloody time they paid her.

He closed his eyes again, trying to picture the scene.  Italy was an intoxicating place, especially for two girls used to Sunnydale's small town feel.  He could just see them strolling through the shopping districts, enjoying the shoes and soft Italian leather.  Dawn would be already half-fluent in the language and coaching her reluctant sister.  The men on the streets would love them both, especially Buffy with her golden hair.  Spike smirked as he pictured the Slayer's reaction to a catcall.  The culprit would likely never know what hit him.

Then he frowned.  Or maybe not.  Maybe one of them had caught her eye.  Maybe she already had someone new to cuddle up to after patrol.  It had been nearly six months after all. And in Italy of all places, she deserved someone who could spend a lazy afternoon in the sun with her.

He stared gloomily at the blank page in front of him.  The uncertainty was part of what made this so difficult.  Fred hadn't been able to give him more than barebones information about where his girls had settled down.  Until he got there, he wouldn't know if there was someone new in her life.  And even if he had that information, it wouldn't help him much in writing to her.

Because sod it all, how was a bloke supposed to ask his girl to let him back into her life again when even he didn't know what exactly he was hoping for?

Spike glanced down at the pile of discarded attempts.  They contained the whole range of poetic themes.  He'd written silly ones, just meant to make her laugh.  He'd written apologies for everything that had happened between them.  Some of them had casual, offering nothing more than friendship and affection.  Others had been flowery sonnets that somehow didn't seem to fit a girl whose fists were part of her appeal.  And a few of them were so raw and honest they would probably send her running.

None of them were good enough.

Spike sighed in frustration. His poetry had always been affected by his confidence level.  Since the night he had been turned, he had only ever willingly shared it with Dru, and she'd been mad as a hatter.  Sure, Buffy had ended up reading his work anyhow and claimed she liked it. But this would be the first poem he'd ever _intended_ for her eyes and he was scared shitless.  Somehow it was easier to face the Slayer in all her fury than let Buffy read what he'd written.

A knock on his door interrupted his reverie.  An official stepped smartly into the cabin and began yammering away in Russian.  

"Don't know what you're on about, mate," Spike drawled with a raised eyebrow, though it was clear enough the man was asking for his papers.  Spike didn’t have any.  Creatures of the night didn’t usually have legal identities, and he’d been in too much of a rush leaving LA to fake one. 

The officer grew impatient, his arms gesturing wildly as he raised his voice.  Spike let his eyes flash yellow briefly and the man paled visibly.  He said something under his breath and backed out of the cabin quickly, practically slamming the door behind.

Spike smirked.   _She_ wouldn't have like it.  Probably would've made him get off the train and pay for another one just on principle.  But he was souled, not a saint.  'Sides, Niblet would have got a kick out of it.

But that thought brought another pang to his chest.  God, he missed them so much.  What if...what would he do if...what if they _didn't_ want him around?  Spike tried to imagine spending the rest of his immortality away from Buffy and his sweet Bit.  Would he really be able to stay away from them if they told him to bugger off?

Desperately, he reached for the pen again, trying not to feel as if the answer to his dilemma depended entirely on his ability to write a poem that wasn't so bloody awful.

He'd be doomed for sure if it did.

 

**********

 

"Dawn!  Are you coming?" Buffy called out.  "It's already seven.  If we're going to do this tonight, we need to get started."

"Be right there!" her sister yelled down at her.

There was a shuffle upstairs and a few seconds later Dawn came marching down the stairs.  "Just had to grab my jacket," she said casually.

"Right," Buffy nodded, not quite looking her sister in the eye.  "You go on outside.  I'll get the stuff and meet you out back."

"Okay," Dawn said, her tone matching Buffy's.  

They had been dancing around each other awkwardly all day.  The plan they had agreed upon reluctantly this morning was weighing on both their minds.  It was the right thing to do, they both knew.  For him, because he was hero.  And for them, because they couldn't keep living in denial.  But it would be hard.  Neither of them really wanted to let go. So they had been avoiding talking about it, keeping conversations light and casual as went about their day.

But now suddenly it was upon them.  They were standing in the back garden, staring at each other uncomfortably and pretending they were okay.  Buffy swallowed as she saw tears prick the corners of her sister's eyes.

"Are you sure about this, Dawnie?" she asked softly.  "We don't have to do this if you don't want to.  We can just go back inside."

Dawn shook her head.  "I'll be alright," she answered bravely.  "Besides, we really should.  He deserves it."

Buffy couldn't argue with that.  She nodded.  "Okay.  Here we go then."

They tiptoed slowly across the garden towards the spot Dawn had chosen earlier.  It was a small alcove flanked by two cypress trees.  Buffy handed the candles to her sister and began work, digging a small hole in the center.  It didn't take long.

"Don't forget the cross," Dawn said quietly. 

Buffy nodded and picked up the small metal cross they had purchased at the market that afternoon.  She supposed anyone who knew who was being honored here would have found it an odd choice for a vampire.  But somehow draping himself over one had changed his whole relationship to crosses and it no longer seemed inappropriate.  Buffy placed it in the ground and secured it with a hammer.

When she was done, Buffy stood up and brushed the dirt off her jeans.  She examined her handiwork quietly for a moment, then looked over at her sister.  Dawn had been watching in uncharacteristic silence.  She was blinking heavily.

"Did you decide what you wanted to bury?" Buffy asked softly.

Dawn nodded and held up the zippo.  "Figured he'd rather me use his pen than his lighter," she said with a shaky laugh.

Buffy raised an eyebrow.  "He's not the only one," she said drily.  "Start a habit like that and you might just be joining him in the great beyond."

A small smile tugged at the corner of Dawn's lips, and she gave a little eye roll.  "Puh-lease.  As if you would."

Buffy gave a watery smile of her own.  "Guess not," she said.  She heaved a sigh.  "I suppose we should get started."

Dawn nodded.  She handed Buffy one of the candles and used the zippo to light it.  Once they were both lit, the sisters looked at each other in expectation.  There was a long and awkward silence as each realized she was waiting for the other to begin.  Buffy felt her face redden.  They hadn't actually discussed much of what they wanted to say.  And she wasn't the best with words.

Embarrassed, she tried to recall what the pastor had said at her mother's funeral.  But she had been too numb that day to focus on the words.  The only phrase she could remember was "Dearly beloved, we have gathered here today..."

Somehow, that seemed too formal for what they were doing.

Buffy swallowed.  "I don't really know how to begin," she admitted. 

Dawn bit her lip.  "Me neither."  She wrinkled her nose.  "Maybe we should read one of the poems or something."

Buffy blinked.  "Good idea."

There was some more awkward shuffling as Dawn took back the candle while Buffy scrambled through the Browning book, looking for something appropriate.  Most of it wasn't really funeral fare.  After several minutes of frustrated flipping, she finally settled on the last page.

"Here we go," she said.  Dawn held the candles over the book for light and they huddled together as Buffy began to read.

 

_Beloved, thou hast brought me many flowers_

_Plucked in the garden, all the Summer through_

_And Winter, and it seemed as if they grew_

_In their close room, nor missed the sun and showers._

_So, in the like name of that love of ours,_

_Take back these thoughts which here unfolded too,_

_And which on warm and cold days I withdrew_

_From my heart's ground.  Indeed, those beds    and bowers_

_Be overgrown with bitter weeds and rue,_

_And wait thy weeding; yet here's eglantine,_

_Here's ivy!--take them, as I used to do_

_Thy flowers, and keep them where they shall not pine._

_Instruct thine eyes to keep their colors true,_

_And tell thy soul, their roots are left in mine._

Buffy's voice grew softer as she read, so that by the time she finished it had become a whisper.  She could feel Dawn's eyes on her.  Slowly, she shut the book and tucked the ribbon carefully in the front.  Dawn handed her a soft scarf.  Buffy wrapped the book in it and set it reverently in the tiny grave, hoping her sister wouldn't see her hand trembling.  Then she helped Dawn remove the cotton from the lighter.

"I-I'd like to say something," Dawn whispered, still holding onto the empty zippo.  Buffy nodded, putting a hand on her sister's arm encouragingly.

Dawn took a deep breath.

"When the monks made me, they gave me all these friends at school.  Part of the packaging, I guess.  But--well, those people were really nice and all--but you could sort of tell that the monks put most of their energy into making me fit in with Mom and Buffy.  Guess they didn't really think teenagers needed much more than that." 

She paused, and Buffy heard her sniff.

"I suppose you didn't either, in the beginning.  I know you probably didn't know why I was always hanging out at your crypt.  And yeah, part of it was because you were cool and knew a lot of stuff and swore a lot."  Buffy grimaced and Dawn moved on hurriedly.  "But it was more than that.  You listened.  And-and you talked to me about important stuff.  Like I was smart enough to get it...and strong enough to handle it.  And...well...that made me feel like I _was_ smart enough and strong enough."

Dawn took a deep breath.

"And then all the stuff with Glory happened.  And I never really thanked you, for what you did...for what you tried to do.  I mean, I hope you knew anyway, but I never said it.  And I know there was a lot of bad stuff that happened after that, but I just wanted you to know that I never forgot the good stuff.  I just wish I'd told you.  But I'm telling you now."

Buffy watched as her sister fingered the lighter.  "One more thing," Dawn said with a slight smile.  She knelt and set the lighter gently on top of Buffy's book.  "I'm still badder than you, you dope."

Buffy snorted.  "Truer words never spoken."

Dawn grinned and stood up.  "Your turn," she said.

Buffy swallowed hard, her mind going suddenly blank.  What did you say to someone you'd been through so much with?  Someone you thought would be there long after you were gone?  The only thing Buffy had wanted to say, she'd said in those last moments under the school.  And he hadn't believed her.

So perhaps she shouldn't have been surprised when the words that spilled out of her mouth weren't as pretty as Dawn's.

"You're an imbecile, you know that?" she huffed at the grave.  "I meant what I said down there, you stupid jerk.  You should've believed me.  So I'll say it again.  I love you.  I love you.  I _love_ you.  And damn I wish you here, because I swear I could just kill you myself for not getting it and--"

"Bloody hell, Slayer, you sure know how to woo a bloke."

Buffy froze.  She looked at Dawn.  Her sister was staring over her shoulder, eyes wide as saucers.  Slowly, Buffy turned around.

And for the space of a few seconds, the world stopped turning.

There he was, standing beneath one of the cypress trees.  His hands were shoved deep into his pockets, and the moon was glinting off his hair.  He took a few steps forward, the world's most satisfied smirk stamped across his face.

"Didn't your mum ever tell you not to speak ill of the dead?"

 

**********

 

She went for his nose first.

Somehow it didn't surprise her that he didn't try to block the punch.  Then they were down in the grass and she was on top of him, punching and hugging and crying.  It took her a few seconds to even process the sounds coming out of her own mouth.

"Stupid...stupid...stupid... _vampire_ ," she muttered, punctuating each word with sharp jab of her fist.  

Then a shrill scream rose above her own voice, and Spike gave an oomf as another body piled on top of him.

"Stop it, you're hurting him!" Dawn sobbed, completely undercutting her words with smacks and hugs of her own.

"Oi," Spike groaned, trying to pull himself upright.  "Anybody ever tell you birds you're a bit lacking in graveside manner?  Not really s'posed to clobber the deceased."

Buffy shot him a glare through her tears.  "The deceased aren't supposed to crash their own party," she retorted.

He grinned.  "Well, you know us vamps.  Never can stay in the ground."

Buffy snorted.  Dawn gave a small cry.  She still had her arms wrapped around his neck and was clinging to him like she was afraid he might disappear if she let go.

"S'okay, Bit," Spike said, breaking her hold gently and looking her in the face.  "Not going anywhere.  I'm here."

Dawn gave him a watery smile.  Buffy drew closer.  "How?" she asked quietly.

Spike grinned at her again.  "Not really sure," he said.  "S'a long story, really.  Short version is I'm never accepting another piece of jewelry from you again."

Buffy's eyes widened.  "The amulet?" she whispered.

He nodded.  "Spat me back out in LA as a spook.  Got trapped haunting the office of a wanker we both know."  He paused for a moment, as if uncertain.  "Came as soon as I could," he said quietly, not looking her in the eye.

Buffy could feel the unspoken question.  He wasn't sure if he'd done the right thing.

"I'm glad you did," she said gently, putting a comforting arm on his.

"Me too," Dawn whispered, finally finding her voice again.

"Glad to hear it."  Spike pulled her closer, pressing a kiss to the top of her forehead.  "Got something for you, Bit."

Dawn perked up.  "Oooh, you brought presents?"

He chuckled.  "Bribes, really.  In case either of you was in stake-on-sight mode."  

Spike disentangled himself from the sisters and pulled a small package from the recesses of his coat.  Dawn tore it open with relish and gave a happy shriek.  It was a new diary, with crisp clean pages tinted in a vintage beige and covered in soft red suede.  

"Thought you might be nearing the end with Verity," he said with a shrug.  Dawn accosted him with another bear hug, and Buffy saw the tension leave his face as he returned it.

"Thank you," her sister whispered, and pulled away.  "You wanna come inside and eat?  I want to hear _everything._ "

"Be right in, Bit," he said.  "Just need a little moment with your sis, yeah?"

Dawn nodded, giving a pointed look at Buffy, as if to warn her not to screw anything up.  Once upon a time, it would have annoyed Buffy to have her little sister interfering.  But things were different now, and she understood.  This was a second chance for all three of them.

But as soon as Dawn had gone inside, awkward silence reigned again.  

They stood looking at each other for a long time, not knowing what to say.  As the minutes ticked by, butterflies began fluttering in her stomach.  What if she was wrong?  What if this wasn't a second chance?  What if Spike had just returned as a friend?  They hadn't exactly talked about where they were heading last year, what with the apocalypse hanging over their heads and everything.  But he _had_ told her back then that it was still all about her.  Had something changed when he came back?

She cleared her throat nervously.  "Why didn't you call?" she asked, wondering as she did so if she was sounding petulant.

Spike looked down, digging at the grass with his boot.  "Couldn't at first.  'Least not without help.  Didn't have a body for a little while."  Buffy raised an eyebrow and he shrugged.  "Like I said, long story."

"But you could have gotten help from someone?" she whispered, trying not to feel hurt that he hadn't even tried.

"I know," he said quickly.  "I should have.  It was just...see there was this thing with an evil doctor and Angel...Angel kept saying...". His voice trailed off helplessly.

Oh.  Of course.  Buffy had nearly forgotten that he'd mentioned the amulet taking him to Angel’s office.  There was no telling what the older vamp had said to try to keep Spike from contacting her.  When would her ex get it through his thick skull that he had no say in her life anymore?

"Remind me to stick a sword through him again next time I see him," she said lightly.

Spike grinned.  "Think I might stick around and watch this time."  His smile faded and he rubbed the back of his neck self-consciously.  "Know I should've called afterward.  But I...wasn't really sure you'd want...I mean, I wanted to see you and if you didn't...then I wouldn't get to...and I dunno, I thought..."

Buffy felt a pang in her chest.  He thought she might not want to see him?  She took a step forward.  "You thought it was better to beg forgiveness than ask permission,” she finished.

"S'pose so."

She reached up and touched his cheek, hating the vulnerable look in his eyes.  "You don't need either," she whispered.  "I'm so glad you came."

He closed his eyes beneath her touch.  "Good to know it, pet."  They stood there for a minute.  Then he cleared his throat in embarrassment.  "Got a present for you too," he said, pulling a slightly larger package out of his coat.  "Prefer you didn't open it in front of me.  Never was very good with that sort of thing."

Buffy took the package bemusedly.  "You coming inside?" she asked.

"In a minute, luv.  Could really use a smoke first."

"Oh," Buffy said, blushing.  "You're lighter is over there in the grave.  It's empty, but we haven't buried it yet."

"Don't think Niblet would mind if I took it back?"

"I think you've got a pass on account of Big Love and Not Being Dust," Buffy said with smile.  She bit her lip.  "Your book is in there as well.  You can have it back too if you want."

Spike gave her an oddly furtive look.  "If it's alright with you, I think we _should_ bury it."

Buffy shifted uncomfortably.  "You sure?  I mean, I know it means a lot to you."

"And everything good in it is already in here," he said, touching his head lightly.  "Think that's where it should be from now on.  Gotta let go of the old to grab onto something new, yeah?"

Buffy nodded in understanding.  Every single word of the book, both his work and Browning's, was already imprinted on her heart.  It was why she had decided it would be okay to bury the physical copy in the first place.

Spike tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.  "'Sides," he continued, licking his lips nervously, "m'sort of hoping the future is in that."  He pointed to the package in her hand.

"Okay then," she smiled softly.  "Can I help?"

He grinned and they walked over to the abandoned grave.  Kneeling next to one another in the grass, they scooped up the loose soil and covered the Browning book quietly.  As they patted down the top layer, Buffy couldn't help feeling like what they were doing was less like a burial and more like planting a seed.

 

**********

 

When they were done, Buffy squeezed his arm and whispered that she would meet him inside.  He nodded, and she left him to refill his lighter and enjoy his smoke.

As she walked through the door, she heard Dawn banging around in the kitchen but slipped quietly up the stairs.  She wasn't quite ready yet for a group celebration.  Instead, Buffy snuck into her bedroom and perched herself carefully on the edge of the bed.

She stared down at the package in trepidation.  Spike had said he was hoping the future would be in here.  

But what kind of future was he envisioning?  

She swallowed nervously, remembering her confession from earlier in the evening.  Spike had been listening to the entire thing, but he hadn't brought it up once during their conversation just now.  What did that mean?  Was he not ready to take another stab at being together again?  Had Angel convinced him to pull the same old "you deserve someone normal" shtick?  Because Buffy wasn't sure she could take it off two different vampires.

With a shaking hand, she unwrapped the package.  It was another journal.  However, unlike Dawn's, this one was bound in a silk cloth with a Victorian floral pattern and tied close with ribbons. Carefully, she opened it to the first page.   Spike had copied a poem inside.

 

_The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost_

_Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,_

_And sorry I could not travel both_

_And be one traveler, long I stood_

_And looked down one as far as I could_

_To where it bent in the undergrowth;_

_Then took the other, as just as fair,_

_And having perhaps the better claim,_

_Because it was grassy and wanted wear;_

_Though as for that the passing there_

_Had worn them really about the same,_

_And both that morning equally lay_

_In leaves no step had trodden black._

_Oh, I kept the first for another day!_

_Yet knowing how way leads on to way,_

_I doubted if I should ever come back._

_I shall be telling this with a sigh_

_Somewhere ages and ages hence:_

_Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--_

    _I took the one less traveled by,_

_And that has made all the difference._

Buffy blinked in confusion. What was this?  Was he replacing the Browning book with something by Frost?  She might have thought so, except it was all hand-written.  Why would he have done that?  She turned the page. There was another poem written on the other side.

 

 _The Word_ Plum _by Helen Chasin_

 

 _The word_ plum _is delicious_

_Pout and push, luxury of_

_Self-love, and savoring murmur_

_Full in the mouth and falling_

_Like fruit_

_Taut skin_

_Pierced, bitten, provoked into_

_Juice, and tart flesh_

_Question_

_And reply, lip and tongue_

_Of pleasure._

Buffy blushed.  She had never heard of Helen Chasin, but the poem sounded like the Spike she knew.  Or at least one side of him.  She'd gotten to know it quite well a few years previous.  

She flipped through the pages.  There was a different poem on each page, all copied in his hand.  He'd kept his writing small and to the center of the book, leaving wide margins. Every poem was by a different author, without any repetition.  They shifted in style from sweet to sensual to sad to joyful.  Some of them she had heard of, but others were completely unfamiliar.  Buffy counted twenty in all.  After that, the poems stopped.  The rest of the pages were blank.  

She turned to the spot where the ribbon marked the last of the poems.  There was a small sheet of notebook paper folded up inside.  Heart pounding, she opened it, smoothed out the creases, and read.

 

_Beneath Her_

_Beneath the cold and austere moon_

_A poor sod cried in ghostly gloom_

_Bewailing how his lady-fair_

_Had crushed him with a haughty air_

_Declaring with a verbal shove_

_The fervor of her suitor's love_

_Was beneath her._

_And there amidst the London haze_

_Emerging with her amber gaze_

_Came a lady pale and strange_

_Who would his lonely prospects change._

_And as she wooed with lovely voice_

_The foolish wretch did make his choice_

_To fall beneath her._

_For many long and pleasing years_

_He breathed her laughter, drank her tears,_

_Rejoicing in each wicked deed_

_And following his lady's lead_

_He earned a fierce and nasty name,_

_Yet even in his monstrous fame_

_Felt beneath her._

_Then daylight beamed into his night--_

_A girl who he felt born to fight,_

_Who dazzled him with sunny cheer_

_Yet filled his fellows with such fear._

_But though he longed to touch her face,_

_She taught him that a vampire's place_

_Was beneath her._

_And she was right, as soon he knew_

_For soon the spark did burn anew_

_To damn his own bloodthirsty tooth_

_Convicting him of shameful truth_

_That his passion so dark and vile,_

_Deserving naught but loathsome bile,_

_Was far beneath her._

_But in this base and lowly place_

_The monster still may seek some grace_

_For though his love unworthy be_

_He yet may make a lesser plea_

_And if the Slayer does allow_

_He'll give himself in solemn vow_

_To serve beneath her._

Tears pricked the corners of Buffy's eyes.  So that was it.  He still didn't believe her.  He thought his love was unworthy.  She wanted to be angry again, as she had been at his grave just a little while ago, but she couldn't.  Of course he didn't believe her.   _She_ had been the one to insist that he was beneath her.  

True, she knew others had done the same before her.  She'd gotten most of that story, if only in bits and pieces.  But the message had mattered most when it was from her.

Somehow, she had to get the truth through to him.

Buffy felt a prickle on the back of her neck.  She looked up to see Spike standing in the doorway, a guarded expression on his face.

"Like your present?" he asked.

She smiled.  "I love it."

"Tried to set up so you could collect the ones you fancied.  Got you started with a few I like, but the pages are perforated so if you don't care for any of them..."

"Spike," she interrupted.  "I love them all."

He looked down bashfully, rubbing his neck.  If he hadn't been a vampire, Buffy suspected his ears would be tinged pink by now.

"Yeah, well, thought you might like the chance to broaden your tastes a bit.  Whole world of poetry besides Browning, you know?"

Buffy smiled shyly.  "She's probably always gonna be one of my two favorites."

"S'pose as favorites go, she's not a bad one to have," he replied.  He paused uncertainly.  "Who's the other?"

She rolled her eyes.

"Who do you think?"

He blinked at her in confusion.  Then slowly, understanding dawned in his eyes.

"Oh."

And now she _knew_ that if he were human he would be blushing beet-red.  He cleared his throat in embarrassment.  "Well...in that case, we really do need to broaden your tastes."

Buffy giggled.  "That sad, huh?"

"More or less," he said quietly.  "They're not worth all that."

"I told you once.  They are to me.  And so are you."

His eyes slid away from hers.  "Buffy..."

Buffy stood up, crossing the room and pressing close to him.  "Why didn't you believe me?" she whispered, trusting that he knew she wasn't talking about poetry anymore.

She felt him swallow as he searched for words.

"I was dying," he said softly.  "And you knew it.  And I knew you knew how much I wanted...well, I knew you knew me...and you never were the type to withhold a bit of kindness if it was in your power to give..."

"You really are a stupid vampire, you know that?" Buffy huffed.  "Weren't you listening earlier tonight?  What I said--"

"You said to a grave.  There's a difference, pet, 'tween saying something like that to someone you think's dead and gone--someone you're putting to rest--and someone what's standing in front of you.  Second kind usually involves acting on."

Buffy paused.  "I guess I get that," she said in a quieter tone.

Spike ran his fingers sadly through her hair.  "Not asking you for that, luv.  Know I don't have any right to it, don't deserve it..." Buffy started to protest but he cut her off.  "No, listen, I don't.  You don't have to do anything.  But I can still be useful.  Just give me a chance to prove it to you."

Buffy looked him in the eye, hating the pain and resignation she saw there.

"Do you still love me?" she asked.

Spike closed his eyes briefly, then opened them again.  "You know I do." 

"And you're not planning on dying again anytime soon?"

He looked confused.  "What?  N-no."

"Good.  Neither am I."  Buffy reached up to cup his face in her hands, forcing him to look at her.  "So believe me when I say this now.  I love you.  I love _you._ And I want to be with you.  Forever.  I want a future with you in it."

She leaned in and kissed him slowly.  

It wasn't like any other kiss they'd shared, not the hungry, desperate ones from their darkest days, nor even the chaste and grateful one she'd given him after Glory.  This was urgent without losing its gentleness, passionate and hopeful and vulnerable and open.  The closest she'd ever come to anything like it was the kisses they had shared under Willow's spell.  Only this was a hundred times better because it wasn't coming from a spell, but from somewhere deep inside her.

When their lips parted, Buffy looked up, her eyes swimming dangerously.  Spike stared back at her in awe.  She saw his lips move to form her name, but no sound came out.

"One more thing," she said with a smile.  "I don't want you beneath me.  I want you beside me."

Spike made a strangled sound as struggled to regain his voice.  He gave a short, shaky laugh.  "Think I can be both?" he asked.

She giggled.  

"Works for me."  And she leaned in for another kiss.

A few minutes later, they were still holding onto one another when the sound of a loud crash from downstairs made them both jump.  Dawn let out a curse.

"Umm...guys..." she called out tentatively.  "We might need to go out to eat tonight."

Spike groaned.  "Forgot I was supposed to be coming up to tell you Niblet was making lasagna.  Should've been down there helping her."

Buffy laughed.  "You mean monitoring her?  If the people in this country could see what Dawn's done to their cuisine, they'd probably kick us both out."

Spike snorted.  

"Girl's got a rock gut, hasn't she?  I'll go tell her we'll be right down," He paused and said tactfully, "You...um...might want to wash up a bit if we're going out."  He licked his finger and ran it under her eyes, and Buffy saw that she had mascara streaking down her face.

"Great.  I look like a raccoon, don't I?"

He smirked.  "A very sexy raccoon."

She rolled her eyes, and he turned to go downstairs.

"Wait!" she called after him, struck by a sudden inspiration.  He turned back.

"Something wrong?" he asked.

"No, it's just--" She squirmed, wondering how to ask him.  "I was just wondering...I mean, since I don't have any memories to ruin it or anything...I thought...". Her voice lodged in her throat.

"What is it, luv?"

Buffy took a deep breath.  "Will you do my makeup?"

And he smiled.

 

**********

 

_Dear Verity,_

_This is my very last entry in you and I thought it would be really sad.  I thought I would be writing to you about Spike's funeral.  But guess what?  I don't have to.  Because he's back!  I mean it, Verity.  It's not just my imagination.  He's really, truly back!_

_And you know what?_

_I think we all get to be happy now._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story isn't complete yet! There's still one chapter left.


	18. Jubilation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter! Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed. You guys are great!
> 
> The first two poems in this chapter are "Cat" by JRR Tolkien and "Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carroll. The third is a Spuffy special.

December 2004

Angel swore in frustration as he stood outside the empty villa on the outskirts of Rome.  He should've left hours ago.  If he didn't get the demon head back to LA, there'd be hell to pay. But instead of doing the sensible thing and boarding the return jet to Wolfram & Hart, he'd let himself get caught up in a wild goose chase.

He knew he shouldn't be trying to look for her.  The last time he'd seen her hadn't exactly gone very well, and Angel suspected that the office rumor mill would swing into high gear if he returned from Rome with a blackened eye.  But he hadn't been able to help himself.

Because it was eating him up inside.

The idea that Spike--Spike!--was here with her was just too much to bear.  It was wrong.  Unnatural, even.  It was bad enough that he had taken advantage of her when she'd come back from the dead a few years ago.  Now that he had a soul he should know better.  Buffy was good and sweet and pure.  She didn't deserve to have someone as crass and rude as Spike imposing on her kindness all the time.

She deserved a Champion.

_But you're not my champion.  You have no place in my life anymore._

Angel grimaced as her voice echoed in his head.  He wanted to forget that night.  Buffy had been so angry.  She...she had said that Spike was a better person than him.

But she hadn't really meant it, he reassured himself.  She'd just been upset about the book.  And he understood that now.  He shouldn't have tried to pass off Spike's perverted musings about Drusilla as his own work. It was offensive to compare the shallow lusts of two soulless creatures to the love he and Buffy had shared.  She deserved better than that.

Angel suspected she wouldn't be happy to see him yet.  She had been pretty clear about her feelings last year.   _Always_ , she had said.  That was how long he was banned from Sunnydale.  

But Sunnydale didn't exist anymore.

This was his chance, he realized.  She couldn't complain about him being in Rome.  He had just as much right to be here as she did.  He was on official Wolfram & Hart business.  And if he dropped in to see her...well, she might not like it but at least he would have reestablished some sort of contact.  Made sure she was okay.  Made sure that she didn't need anything.  Made sure that...

_...that you're still her One and Only._

Angel told the voice in his head to shut up.  That wasn't it at all.  He was here to check on Buffy, to make sure that Spike wasn't bothering her.  If need be, to rescue her from the irritating nuisance.  Her patience had to be wearing thin by now.  Spike had a way of getting on people's nerves.  Darla hadn't been able to stand him, and Dru had only tolerated him because she was insane.  Buffy was probably at her wit's end trying to find a compassionate way to get rid of him.

Maybe if he managed to take the pest off her hands, she would finally forgive him for the book fiasco.

But only if he could find her.  Neither she nor Dawn had been at the address he had been given, though he was sure it was the right one.  Thinking she was just out to dinner, he'd waited around for several hours for her to show up.  But she never did.

He didn't get it.  Even if she had decided to patrol the Roman graveyards--which _were_ pretty abundant hunting grounds--she should've dropped Dawn off at home first.  And anyway, it was after midnight.  Buffy herself should've been in by now.

If he only had Spike's address, he could track him down and force the bleached wonder to tell him what was going on.  But apparently his grandchilde had holed up in a crypt or abandoned property because no one at Wolfram & Hart could seem to dig up an address for him.

Or maybe...

No, no way.  Even Buffy wouldn't simply let him stay in her basement.  Not without an apocalypse hanging over her head.  That was pushing generosity to the brink.

Frustrated, Angel decided enough was enough.  He needed to return to his hotel, pick up the demon head, and head for the airport.  He couldn't just wait here forever.  With a sigh, he began walking, wishing he had asked the company for a Vespa.  It would take him thirty minutes just to reach an area populated enough to hail a cab.  He eyed the park that separated Buffy's residential area from the city hub.  Maybe he could take a short cut.

He hadn't taken more than a few steps into the park when he heard voices.  Angel's ears perked.  They were speaking English. 

Quickening his pace, he headed toward the sounds.  Soon he found himself at an overlook, a small meadow below him.  There they were, all three of them.

Angel paused, hidden by trees.  Hot rage boiled in his stomach as he saw Buffy and Dawn clinging to one another, trembling as Spike advanced upon them.

He was in game face.

 

**********

 

Dawn watched the vampire in anticipation.  He was circling them, a wicked glint in his amber eyes. His movements were slow and predatory, like a giant tiger moving in for the kill. She held on to her sister tightly.  She could feel the Slayer's muscles tense, preparing for the fight.

Suddenly the vampire began to speak, his voice low and ominous.

 

_The fat cat on the mat_

_May seem to dream_

_Of nice mice that suffice_

_For him, or cream;_

_But he free, maybe,_

_Walks in thought_

_Unbowed, proud, where loud_

_Roared and fought_

_His kin, lean and slim_

_Or deep in den_

_In the East feasted on beasts_

_And tender men._

The sisters exchanged looks, grinning in excitement.  The vampire crouched low, climbing the large boulder under which they had placed their picnic blanket.  He scowled down at them for a short spell and then growled threateningly.

 

_The giant lion with iron_

_Claw in paw,_

_And huge ruthless tooth_

_In gory jaw;_

_The pard dark-starred,_

_Fleet upon feet,_

_That oft soft from aloft_

_Leaps upon his meat..._

Here the vampire pounced.  Dawn shrieked happily as he fell upon her sister.  Buffy was ready for him and the two went tumbling.  He landed on top, grinning down at the Slayer malevolently.  His voice dropped to a sultry whisper as he continued.

 

_...where woods loom in gloom--_

_Far now they be,_

_Fierce and free..._

He went for her throat, dropping his fangs to land a tender kiss.  When he lifted his head, his amber eyes had melted into blue.  Buffy smiled up at him affectionately.

"Jerk," she said.

He grinned wolfishly and finished the poem.

 

_...and tamed is he;_

_But fat cat on the mat_

_Kept as a pet,_

_He does not forget._

He leaned in for another kiss.  Dawn looked on in amusement as her two favorite people cuddled in the grass.  They were so perfect for each other, she reflected happily.  It was nice to see them finally accepting it.

She began to frown, though, as the minutes ticked by.   They were _still_ cuddling.  Dawn huffed impatiently.  Clearly, she was going to have to start imposing time limits on this sort of thing.

"Hello?" she cleared her throat pointedly.  "Earth to lovebirds.  Kid sister, still here."

 

Spike grinned up at her.  "Sorry, Bit," he said, in a tone that said he was not sorry at all.

Dawn crossed her arms and glared at him.  "You said I could read one of the poems," she accused.  "I don't want to read if you guys are just gonna smooch your way through it."

Spike lifted an eyebrow.  "Hear that, pet?" he asked Buffy mischievously.  "Sounds like Niblet wants some...attention."

 _Oops,_ Dawn thought.   _Big mistake._

"You wouldn't dare," she protested, a nervous hum running through her.

"Oh, wouldn't I?"

Dawn felt pretty sure he would.  She turned to her sister and made a last, desperate appeal for help.  "Buffy?"

Buffy grinned at her lover.  "She's got a ticklish belly," she confided.

"Traitor!" Dawn yelled, as Spike laughed boyishly and pounced again.  

The three of them tussled in the grass for several minutes, the two super-beings taking care to keep it gentle enough for Dawn.  Finally, they let her go.  Dawn crawled away, ribs aching from a merciless attack of the tickles.  

"You do know you're supposed to stop when a person cries, 'uncle,' right?" she complained, still trying to stop laughing.

Spike stretched out on the picnic blanket lazily.  "What can I say, Bit?" he said with a smirk.  "Still a teensy bit evil."

Dawn rolled her eyes.  "So what's your excuse?" she asked her sister.  

Buffy sat down next to him.  "Not sure," she said, "but I think it might be contagious.  He's rubbing off on me."  She reached for the poetry book and began flipping through the pages.  "What should we read next?  I want to pick one out."

"Oh no you don't!" Dawn huffed again.  "It is _so_ my turn."

"It's _my_ book!"

"You're just gonna choose something lovey-dovey and lame!"

"I will not!"

The sisters squabbled for a few more minutes, then finally decided to pick out a poem together.  They huddled a few feet away from the picnic blanket, and whispered over the pages furtively, giggling as they made their choice.  Dawn could feel Spike watching them in suspicion.

"Oi!" he called.  "What're you birds plotting over there?"

"Your imminent doom," Dawn answered primly.  She cleared her throat and began to read.  " _Jabberwocky,_ by Lewis Carroll."

Spike's worried frown melted into surprised delight and he leapt to his feet.

 

**********

 

Angel watched them from the shadows, hidden by the trees that edged the overlook.  The initial rage he'd felt when he first saw Spike advancing upon the sisters in full game face had evaporated into confusion.  Buffy should've been challenging him, not cowering in fear as her enemy crept closer.  It wasn't until the last moment that Angel had realized the girls were not actually shaking with fear, but with laughter.

What the hell?

His consternation only grew the longer he watched.  He'd been prepared to step in as soon as Spike had pounced on Buffy.  But just as he'd been about to come to her rescue, he had caught sight of her sister's excited face and it had checked him.  Dawn wouldn't be happy if Buffy were actually in danger.  And as he watched, it finally became clear to Angel that he wasn't witnessing violence.  The three figures in the meadow were...they were...oh, of all the ridiculous...

They were _playing_.

And now they were at it again.  Angel watched in shock as his ex and his grandchilde faced off, eagerness stamped across their faces.  Spike beckoned her and Buffy clasped her hands behind her back, jutting out her chin defiantly.  Dawn's voice rose to narrate the confrontation.

 

_'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves_

_Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:_

_All mimsy were the borogoves,_

_And the mome raths outgrabe._

As Slayer and vampire circled each other, Dawn shifted her voice, mimicking an old man.

 

_"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!_

_The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!_

_Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun_

_The frumious Bandersnatch!"_

Buffy bounced on her heels in excitement as Dawn shifted back to her narration voice.  Angel saw her reach for side, withdrawing an imaginary sword from its sheath and brandishing it at Spike with the expertise of someone who knew the genuine article.  He leapt back as if the weapon were real, arming himself once more with fangs and amber eyes.

 

_He took his vorpal sword in hand;_

_Long time the manxome foe he sought--_

_So rested he by the Tumtum tree_

_And stood awhile in thought._

_And, as in uffish thought he stood,_

_The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,_

_Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,_

_And burbled as it came!_

And quick as lighting they were off, the vampire snarling dangerously as the Slayer gave chase with her imaginary steel.  Dawn lost her cadence for a moment, defeated by a severe case of the giggles.  Suddenly, Buffy jumped on the boulder, gaining the higher ground.  Dawn composed herself and continued.

 

_One, two!  One, two!  And through and through_

_The vorpal blade when snicker-snack!_

_He left it dead, and with its head_

_He went galumphing back._

With a swift movement, Buffy made a pretend swipe.  Spike broke out in an absurd grin and clutched at his throat.  He stiffened and let himself fall backward dramatically, staggering as he did so.  Buffy leapt from the rock, landing next to him and deftly catching him before he hit the ground.  Dawn switched to her old man voice once more.

 

_"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?_

_Come to my arms, my beamish boy!_

_O frabjous day!  Callooh!  Callay!"_

_He chortled in his joy._

Buffy held the monster she had just slain as if he had suddenly become the damsel in distress.  Spike seemed content to let her, staring up at her with adoring yellow eyes as she laid a gentle kiss on his forehead.  Dawn eyed them with cheerful exasperation as she finished the poem.

 

_'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves_

_Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:_

_All mimsy were the borogoves,_

_And the mome raths outgrabe._

Angel watched the scene unfold before him with mounting horror.  What were they doing?  What was _he_ doing?  Didn't he have any shame?  Did his soul not make him feel the guilt, the enormity of everything that he'd done?  How could Spike act as if that no longer mattered?  What right did he have to be...to be...free?

And Buffy!  What could she possibly be thinking?  He watched her as she continued to caress Spike on the grass.  Angel had come here to rescue her.  It was supposed to be a favor, relieving her of the nuisance who just didn't seem to realize when he wasn't welcome.

Only apparently, he _was_ welcome here.  Angel eyed Buffy carefully, looking for any sign that she might just be humoring his grandchilde.  But you didn't humor people by stroking their cheeks or kissing them.  And as Angel watched them cuddle, he realized with a sinking feeling that Buffy might not want to be rescued from Spike.  Slowly, the bitter truth hit home.

She was happy.

He watched, appalled, as the cuddling turned into roughhousing again.  Dawn's shrill voice hurt his ears as she tossed herself into the fray with a happy squeal.

Angel had seen enough.

Spinning on his heels, he fled into the shadows, disgust waging war with jealousy inside him.  He tore through the park in a desperate fury, stopping only when he reached the busy street on the other side.  He hailed a cab and within a few minutes one appeared.   He climbed inside, his head reeling from what he had just witnessed.

It wasn't fair.  He'd been suffering for his sins for a full century, and working to atone for them for several years.  But he'd only been really, truly happy a handful of dangerous times. He'd only been free when his soul, weighed down by its guilt, had been removed from him. And each time, he had very nearly destroyed everything that mattered whenever he had the damned spark.

It had been bad enough when he'd had to watch the people around him enjoy their moments of happiness.  Angel thought of Connor, blissfully unaware of his true heritage.  He thought of Fred and Wesley, eloped and on sabbatical with Fred's parents in Texas.  It hurt to watch them be happy and know that such a thing was denied to him.  But he could justify it.  They were human.  Even the sins they had stacked up in their short lives couldn't compare to his centuries of bloodthirst.

Spike was different.  Spike was supposed to be like him.  He wasn't supposed to be able to be happy.  The two of them were cut off from both vampires and humankind.  Creatures like them had to earn their redemption.

_Gotta be some mercy 'long the way for sorry sods like you and me, yeah?"_

Angel wanted to ignore the voice.  The cab pulled up to his hotel and he focused his attention on paying the driver and making his way to the luxury suite Wolfram & Hart had paid for. But as he packed his toiletries into a small bag and taped the box with the demon head shut, he found himself dwelling on their fight from several weeks ago--and the slip of paper Spike had given him.

 

_What are you doing?" Angel asked suspiciously._

_Spike shot him a look.  "Trying to save that shiny soul you're so proud of, you stupid git."_

_He finished writing, tore off the page, folded it and held it out.  Angel took it reluctantly._

_"What is this?" he asked, staring at the numbers on the paper._

_"Coordinates," Spike said simply.  "To a cave in Africa.  You really want to be happy, you really want to have love, you can.  Go through the demon trials, make that soul of yours stable for your own sake and everyone else's."_

_Angel stared at him in shock.  "You just expect me to--"_

_"Don't expect you to do anything, mate," Spike said, cutting off his rant before it began.  "If anything, s'pect you'll just put in a drawer in your desk and stare at it for a century or two till you lose it."_

 

Well, Spike had been wrong about that.  Angel hadn't put the coordinates in his desk.

He'd put them in a safe deposit box hidden behind a painting in his office.

And he hadn't stared at them at all.

Because he didn't have to.  He'd memorized the numbers the first time he'd seen them.  They were seared into his brain, tempting him, promising him that things didn't have to be this way.

He could do it, if he wanted.  He could drop this package off at the airport, sending it back to LA without him.

Angel paused a moment in his packing to glance out his south-facing window.  Somewhere out there was Africa.  It was close, relatively speaking.  All he would have to do was make his way down the boot of Italy, hop a ferry to Sicily and another one to Tunisia.  Hell, he could probably _swim_ there if he couldn’t find a ferry.

It would be simple, really, to slip his Wolfram & Hart leash.

Angel zipped his bag shut and tucked the package under his arm.  He left the room without a second glance at the window.

The jet was waiting, and he had an appointment on Monday.

 

**********

 

A few miles away, the roughhousing in the park had given way to a relaxed calm.  Buffy had unpacked the picnic basket and had spread out some Italian sweet breads for the three of them.  She and Spike were sharing a small bottle of wine, which Buffy had declared was much tastier than beer or whiskey.  Dawn had been allowed to have a tiny bit as well, but for the most part just stuck to her thermos of hot chocolate.  She was sprawled across the blanket, writing in her diary.  

"Got enough light there, Dawnie?" her sister asked.

"I'm fine," Dawn answered.  She tapped the kerosene lamp next to her.  "This is nice and warm."

Spike leaned his head back to rest against the rock, feeling pleasantly warm and full.  Buffy was tucked into his side, resting her head just beneath his chin.  He looked over her hair to where Dawn was busily writing down the night's adventures.

"Come up with a name for this one, Bit?" he asked.  He knew she had been debating about what to call the new diary.

She flashed him a smile.  "Jubilee," she said proudly.  "I thought it would make a good name for Verity's little sister."

Buffy lifted an eyebrow.  "Does Jubilee steal Verity's clothes as well?"

Dawn rolled her eyes.  "It's not as if you wear this blouse anymore," she pointed out.  "Anyway, blue looks good on me."

Buffy grumbled good-naturedly under her breath, but Spike just smiled.  "S'a good choice, Niblet.  Glad to see you writing."

"Am I going to be the only one left without a writing habit?" Buffy groused.  "Soon I'm gonna need a dictionary just to be around the two of you!"

Spike chuckled.  "Nah, don't sell yourself short, pet.  Takes a right fine vocabulary to come up with a decent pun."

Buffy shifted her head to look up at him.  "You like my puns?" she asked shyly.

Her eyes did strange things to his insides, their bright green complemented by a rosy shade that matched her sweater.  She had allowed him to do her makeup again that evening, and Spike silently congratulated himself on his choice of eyeshadow.  She looked an Italian oil painting come to life.  Something lavish, all bold and rich with vibrant colors.

"Always did."  He nuzzled closer, knowing she enjoyed listening to the purr beneath his chest.  "Never knew a White Hat could be so much fun till I fought you."

Buffy smiled warmly.  "Spike,” she said in a coaxing voice.  “Can I hear your poem?"

He kissed her temple.  "Thought I was supposed to be saving it for Christmas," he said, rather pleased to be celebrating the holiday again after so many decades.  It had been one of the nicer parts of being human.

"Please?" she begged.  "Christmas is still two weeks away.  You have plenty of time to write me another one by then."

Spike laughed.  "Greedy little bint, aren't you?"

"Does that mean I can?"

“Oooh!” Dawn piped up.  “I wanna hear it too!” 

He gave a dramatic sigh, though secretly he was chuffed.  They were flattering him, to be sure.  They couldn't possibly be blind enough to like the bloody things as much as they claimed.  Still, it felt nice.  It had been a long time since anyone saner than Dru had humored his poetry.

"If either of you birds repeats this, I swear I'll..."

"Yeah, yeah," Dawn waved at him.  "You'll rip out our lungs or something like that."

"Sing us a new tune, Mr. Big Bad," Buffy said with a grin.  "That one expired a long time ago."

Spike had no answer for that.  Instead, he cleared his throat in embarrassment, wishing they weren't both looking at him expectantly.  He still wasn't used to reciting in front of other people. He took a deep breath and focused on not letting his voice betray his nerves.

 

_Once when I was_

_Tender and young_

_I thought I knew_

_How love was sprung_

_And bade my heart_

_To worship there_

_Beneath the shade_

_Of customs fair._

_But youthful love_

_Did flee unsung_

_As fashions failed_

_My broken tongue._

_My middle years_

_I worshipped night_

_Reborn anew_

_To bash and bite._

_A lady took_

_My mortal breath_ ,

_Leaving only_

_Her love and death._

_Yet that love too_

_Was put to flight,_

_Banished boldly_

_From sunshine's light._

_But what is this_

_Devotion new,_

_All wild and soft_

_And open too?_

_It burns away_

_My deepest shame_

_In brightest glow_

_Of living flame._

_My worship now_

_Holds one thing true:_

_That love and life_

_Are one in two._

 

Buffy gave a contented sigh.  "Love and life," she said.  "I like that."

"Me too!" Dawn agreed.

Spike gave a small snort.  "You birds are off your rockers if you think that was any good." 

"Rockers are overrated anyway," Buffy said with a smile.

Spike rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment.  "If you say so, pet."

"I do."

"Well...um..." Spike cleared his throat, looking for a change of subject.  "Got anything left in the basket?  I'm feeling peckish."

"We have cookies," Buffy said, pulling out a bag of store-bought biscotti.  "But you gotta say it first."

"Say wha--oh." Spike gave a wicked grin, catching her meaning.  He leaned in closer, and whispered seductively.  "Don't _I_ get a cookie?"

Buffy stuffed one into his mouth.  Dawn giggled, and quickly found a cookie crammed into her own mouth.  She glared at Spike and grabbed the bag from him.  Within seconds, a full-scale food fight had erupted.

 

**********

 

It was just a few hours before sunrise when they made their way back into the villa.  Dawn padded up the stairs to her bedroom, declaring that she would need the entire weekend to recover her sleep.  

Buffy was too tired to make it that far.  Instead, she collapsed on the sofa.

"Glad we're home," she said sleepily, looking around at the living room.

Spike smiled.

“Me too, pet,” he said, drinking in the sight of her.  “Me too.”

 

 

 

The end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all folks! Hope you guys enjoyed it!
> 
> (*Shamelessly plugs her current WIP, Knight Errant.)


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